Jeepys - I think it is generally accepted that the ex-crab who allegedly scuppered the first deal was something of a convenient scapegoat because the new Govt didn't want to be saddled with a £30Bn PFI it couldn't afford and the selected contractor was having trouble getting the required finance.
No, we don't need a SAR helicopter every 30 miles but there has to be a happy medium somewhere.
In coming to a 10-base solution, I think it was assumed that a 12-base solution had worked perfectly for many years which was far from the truth, even when we had a second standby aircraft at each military flight - unfortunately the data to prove a rescue didn't take place doesn't exist and won't in the future so we won't actually know if jobs aren't getting done because of the big gaps in the coverage unless there is a big, high-profile disaster where help is a long time coming because the super-fast new aircraft was already miles away in the wrong direction.
Now I am not saying that what we had before was a perfect solution because it wasn't BUT, if you are spending £Billions of public money on a SAR service for the next 10 years (and beyond) you would hope that some of these issues have been considered by the DfT.
There will be some surge capability as each flight will have 2 aircraft and Bristow have insisted that crews live within a 30 mile radius of the flight but how long that capability will take to ramp up has yet to be discussed as there seems to be no formal requirement for a second standby (which we used to have until a few years ago but lost due to poor serviceability).