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The Maritime and Coastguard Agency's plans would involve the closure of two of Wales' three 24-hour Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centres - at Holyhead and Milford Haven.

The third - at Swansea - would operate during day-light hours only and be covered from Southampton at night.

The MCA argues that a smaller number of networked centres will boost resilience and allow work to be more effectively distributed.

Critics fear that the distances involved, coupled with the loss of local knowledge, could compromise the co-ordination of search and rescue operations and put lives at risk.

An extension of the public consultation into controversial plans for modernising the coastguard service around the coast of Wales has been welcomed by campaigners fighting to save their local coastguard stations.

Under proposals being brought forward by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency 10 of the existing 18 coastguard stations in the UK would close - including Holyhead and Milford Haven.

Swansea would become Wales' only remaining coastguard station - and that would only operate during daylight hours. At night any incident around the Welsh coast would be handled from either Hampshire or Aberdeen.

Since the plans were unveiled before Christmas more than 1,000 submissions have been submitted, prompting Westminster's shipping minister Mike Penning to extend the consultation period by six weeks.

Mr Penning told MPs: "Our proposals to modernise the co-ordination of coastguard rescues is in response to a long-overdue need to create an integrated national network and increase resilience."

"This need will not simply go away. However, this is a complex and sensitive issue and I want to give those affected by the proposals the greatest possible opportunity to contribute to the debate."

Mr Penning's announcement has been welcomed by Dennis O'Connor of the Save Milford Haven Coastguard Campaign which has organised a series of local protests against its proposed closure.

"This is great news. It's a clear indication from central government that there are issues that have to be addressed - particularly the issue of safety"

"We're talking about a first-class emergency service. The coastguard stations should not be cut - it's as simple as that. Lives will be put at risk because it will lead to response times being increased."

Two years in the making, the modernisation proposals emerged just as the Maritime and Coastguard Agency was told it had to find savings of 22% as part of the Government's drive to reduce the budget deficit.

The MCA's hope is that technology will help deliver those savings. Its vision is a nationally networked system of rescue co-ordination centres, boosting resilience and allowing work to be effectively distributed.

According to the agency's chief executive, Sir Alan Massey: "We will much more systematically gather local knowledge: store it, test it, assess it, make it accessible to everybody."

"The fundamental thing about search and rescue is the search bit. The implication there is that you don't always know where somebody is when they are in danger."

"Nothing we're doing is going to jeopardise maritime safety. None of our plans would foresee people's lives or livelihoods being put any more at risk than they are at the moment."

Figures from the MCA show that last year its Milford Haven station dealt with 715 serious - "alert, distress and uncertain" - incidents. 109 of those involved medical evacuations

Critics of the MCA's plans are unclear how the agency can guarantee that safety won't be compromised if that weight of calls is transferred to Swansea- or even a 24-hour station on the Solent.

John Reynolds runs Pembrokeshire Islands Boat Trips which carries hundreds of passengers a week to the bird sanctuary of Skomer during the Summer.

Three or four times a year his boat, the Dale Princess, will assist Milford Haven coastguard station in searches, often for divers who've been swept away from their dive boat by local currents.

He's concerned that the proposed closure of the Milford Haven station will mean that the local knowledge of the 24 coastguards who work there will be lost to the service.

"It's all about setting search patterns and you've got to be local to know where these tides are. It's no good looking in a tidal atlas, it's not going to give you the detail that you'd have from local knowledge."

"Whereas Milford Haven would have high water at 12 o'clock, then the tide in Little Sound and Jack Sound off Skomer Island would turn four hours before that."

"But unless you knew that fact you wouldn't know where people were drifting in the event of an incident."

The consultation on the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's proposals for modernising the coastguard service will now close on 5 May.