42,000,000

The Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) is putting in place additional search capacity in its Coastguard aviation service to provide urgently needed increased situational awareness. The contract modification will provide a dedicated supplementary search capability to support the UK Coastguard Search and Rescue Helicopter Service (UKSARH) by providing this additional situational awareness in the English Channel. This will be delivered using a combination of crewed and uncrewed planes. The aircraft will be operated from or near the existing Lydd search and rescue (SAR) base so as to be able to work closely with the SAR helicopter based there and make best use of the existing infrastructure under the UKSARH service. The contract modification will be in effect from 01 March 2022 for three years, to align with the start of the replacement contractual arrangements to the current UKSARH service. An extension option of up to two years has been included should the arrangements that replace the current UKSARH service not be ready in time.