More than 130 ambulance staff needed treatment and 30 were hospitalised.Detective Chief Constable Chris Sims, who was overseeing yesterday's exercise, said: "We have got to minimise the time it takes to get this full canopy of resources deployed, and I am sure we will be talking about that .. There is a real balance to be struck It is not just protecting ourselves. It's about serving casualties."In line with previous large-scale exercises such as that at Bank Underground station in London last year, emergency workers called to the scene had little or no prior warning.Volunteer victims, who were made to sit or stand in containment zones wearing orange capes, were instructed to become angry and confused at delays in their treatment.At one stage, several tried to escape by running out of the cordon, forcing police in protective suits and gas masks to apprehend them. Emergency planners admitted last night that procedures for dealing with a chemical attack on Britain need to be improved after "victims" in the biggest anti-terror exercise yet waited nearly three hours for treatment. The club recorded more than a million camping nights at its 100 sites in the UK last year.

But the Douai Psalter was largely destroyed during the First World War and the remaining fragments are too fragile to handle. More than 70,000 people will move home this year to ensure their children can go to good schools, according to research published today. About 4 per cent of people who have moved or are planning to move during the April to September period said they were doing so to ensure they lived in the right catchment area. The committee chairwoman, Gwyneth Dunwoody, Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, said: "The individuals who work at the MCA are dedicated to saving lives, by watching our coasts and improving the standards of vessels. The agency had been "entirely complacent" about understaffing and "failed to conduct timely research" into the rise in deaths and accidents, the committee report said.In 2002, the Coastguard agency responded to 2,700 incidents involving individuals and nearly 5,000 with boats. We would have more confidence in the chief executive's ability to change this if he had managed to identify problems he needs to solve."An MCA spokesman said today the rise in swimming, beach and cliff incidents was because of more people in coastal leisure activities..

Their leaders need to focus on these tasks."She added: "The agency has failed to live up to these standards. One fatal accident in which a search-and-rescue helicopter went to the wrong place might have been caused by understaffing and inexperience. A father and his two sons died after the boating accident on Loch Ryan, in western Scotland in July 2003.The agency had not made a full assessment of closures of rescue co-ordination centres at Pentland on the north coast of Scotland, Oban in western Scotland and Tyne Tees in north-east England and it was unaccept-able to contemplate further closures, the report said.A third of rescue and co-ordination centres were staffed at or below minimum levels. Coastguards helped rescue more than 150 swimmers and 39 people who were swept into the sea. More than 250 people were cut off by the tide, 200 were trapped on cliffs and 53 got stuck in mud. There was a 17.3 per cent increase in accidents. The House of Commons Transport Select Committee said staffing levels at the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) were unacceptable. Although the MCA chief executive, Captain Stephen Bligh, had claimed understaffing did not affect safety, the MPs said they were unconvinced.

More than 300 people died in 2002, a 28.1 per cent increase since 1998. A shortage of coastguards could be behind a rise of more than a quarter in the number of people who have lost their lives round Britain's coasts, a committee of MPs said yesterday. Persuade a farmer to surrender a corner of his territory for the night in return for a nominal fee. Lucky applicants may be able to secure use of lavatory facilities.Cost: £5 or a promise to muck out the cows.IN THE WILDUnlicensed camping is banned by many local authorities but purists argue it is the only authentic way to sleep out.