TWENTY years after being booted off Cantonment Hill for bad behaviour, Fremantle Volunteer Sea Rescue is back—by the skin of its teeth.

Acting mayor Josh Wilson, the organisation’s loudest cheerleader on council, used his casting vote to get the lease over the line when the council split down the middle.

The vote to give the organisation a 10-year lease with an option to renew replaced an earlier recommendation to provide a five-plus-five deal.

About 20 years ago the group shared the Cantonment Hill signal station, then under Defence department control, with amateur radio station operators.

Bad behaviour, including too much late-night partying, resulted in them all being asked to leave.

by ROSIE HENDERSON