LIFESAVERS were guests of honour at a special reception at the House of Commons attended by politicians.

Members of the Severn Area Rescue Association, including from the Beachley station, visited Parliament last Wednesday (October 16) for an event celebrating ‘Independent Lifeboats’.

The reception was attended by local MPs, including Forest MP Mark Harper, Newport East MP Jessica Morden and Monmouth MP David Davies.

SARA Beachley chief executive officer Mark Carwardine said: “We were hosted by Jessica Morden MP, who gave us a marvellous tour of the Palace of Westminster, and it was also great to meet up with Mark Harper MP, David Davies MP and other MPs.

“Eastleigh MP Mims Davies, who has Hamble Lifeboat in her constituency, organised the event, which was also supported by the Maritime Minister, Nusrat Ghani This was an excellent day. We have never had a meeting with so many other independent lifeboat organisations before, and we had a number of very useful conversations.

“We look forward to building upon these in the coming months.

“Our MPs have been very supportive of our funding bids, and we are working with them on a number of other areas as well, so it was a valuable opportunity to meet them in their working environment.”

SARA has applied to the Department for Transport again this year for a part of its annual Rescue Boat Grant Fund, and is waiting to hear if this has been successful.

Jessica Morden said: “It was great to welcome the Severn Area Rescue Association to the UK Parliament today for a reception to celebrate the work of independent lifeboats.

“I’d like to say a big thank you to the wonderful volunteers at SARA for all the work they do in Newport East and beyond.”

The event was attended by teams from over a dozen independent lifeboat organisations, plus the RNLI.

Meanwhile, SARA Beachley has been boosted by a cheque for nearly £1,000 raised by the Chepstow office of the Coventry Building Society.

Branch manager David Howley and colleague Terri-Ann Watkins attended the station to hand over £956 towards upgrading the land team’s rope rescue equipment.

SARA is also celebrating raising £13,000 from its second ‘Wild Wye Swim’ event organised near Symonds Yat last month on the River Wye.

More than 400 swimmers took the plunge, covering distances of 1km, 7km or 10.5km.

For more information see www.sara-rescue.org.uk and the Beachley station’s Facebook page.