gradually improved with additional landing areas and one of England's shortest runways, at . The naval base closed after the end of the Cold War in 1995, and the Royal Naval Air Station closed in 1999, although the runway remained in use for Her Majesty's Coastguard Search and Rescue flights as MRCC Portland until 2014. MRCC Portland's area of responsibility extended midway across the English Channel, and from Start Point in Devon to the Dorset/Hampshire border, covering an area of around . The 12 Search and Rescue teams in the Portland area dealt with almost 1000 incidents in 2005. Portland lends its name to one of the BBC's Shipping Forecast regions. There are still two prisons on Portland: HMP The Verne, which until 1949 was a Victorian military fortress, and a Young Offenders' Institution (HMYOI) on the Grove clifftop. This was the original prison (HM Prison Portland) built for convicts who quarried stone for the Portland Breakwaters from 1848. For a few years until 2005 Britain's only prison ship, HMP The Weare, was berthed in the harbour. Governance Portland is in the Dorset unitary authority, administered by Dorset Council. The island forms one of the 52 wards and elects three members to the council. Portland is an ancient royal manor, and until the 19th century remained a separate liberty within Dorset for administration purposes. It was then an urban district from 1894 to 1974. The borough of Weymouth and Portland formed on 1 April 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 by merger of Portland urban district with the borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis. In 2020, the borough of Weymouth and Portland was abolished when Dorset moved to a unitary authority structure of local government. Weymouth, Portland and the Purbeck district are in the South Dorset parliamentary constituency, created in 1885. The constituency elects one Member of Parliament; the current MP is Richard Drax (Conservative). Weymouth and Portland have been twinned with the town of Holzwickede in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany since 1986, and the French town of Louviers, in the department of Eure in Normandy, since 1959. The borough and nearby Chickerell have been a Fairtrade Zone since 2007. Geography The Isle of Portland lies in the English Channel, south of Wyke Regis, and west-southwest of London, at (50.55, −2.44). Portland is situated approximately halfway along the UNESCO Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site; the site includes of the Dorset