MINEHEAD hospital staff have kick-started an appeal to buy a new lifeboat for the town.

They have handed over a cheque for £200 – half the proceeds of their Christmas fun week – to volunteer crew members from the RNLI station.

The RNLI plans to replace Minehead’s existing D-class lifeboat when it comes to the end of its working life in December 2019. But officials have given the Minehead station the opportunity to raise the necessary £52,000 locally.

The D class lifeboat is a development of a design dating back to 1963, the year the RNLI first introduced fast, inflatable boats to cope with the changing nature of emergency calls it was responding to.

It is fast and manoeuvrable and with a shallow draught can work close inshore, in surf, among rocks and even in caves. With a crew of three and a top speed of 25 knots it can be launched by day or night, and can carry up to five survivors.

The station’s existing D class has been involved in hundreds of local rescue operations since its arrival.

Minehead RNLI chairman Bryan Stoner said the D class could almost have been designed with the Minehead station in mind.

“At low tide we have to cope with exposed mud flats to the east of the station and at high tide to the west the sea either comes right up to the cliffs or leaves only rocky beaches exposed, so the D class is just the right tool for the job in each case,” he said.

Fund-raising for the new boat is being led by the Minehead station’s own support group with a series of events already being planned for the next 12 months.