First permanent home for rescuers - The Stratford Observer

First permanent home for rescuers

Stratford Editorial 13th Nov, 2016   0

A SEARCH and rescue charity which assists the police in finding vulnerable missing people has moved into its first permanent base in Warwickshire.

Warwickshire Search and Rescue has moved into Allander House at Stoneleigh Park. The Lowland Rescue team, made up of around 50 volunteers, was set-up three years ago to support the police with searches for people in and around Warwickshire.

Until now the team has used Coventry’s Foleshill Fire Station as a training base but has not had a permanent headquarters.

The new office will not only act as a place to train, but also a storage facility for essential equipment used by the team on call outs.




Warwickshire Search and Rescue receives no government funding, and the unpaid volunteers are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The charity also has a dog team, used to cover large areas and those difficult for human teams to search, and a kayak team for water searches.


Phil Hewish, Chair of Warwickshire Search and Rescue, said: “Having a central base in Warwickshire will make a huge difference to us. “We hold regular training sessions every other week as well as ad hoc sessions, so having a dedicated place to do this whenever we need to will make a huge difference to the whole of the team.

“It will also provide us with somewhere to store our equipment as well as our incident response vehicle which is currently kept in the garages of our volunteers. “We rely completely on donations so had to find somewhere which was affordable and also had facilities such as a toilet and a kitchen which Stoneleigh Park was able to provide us with.”

The charity is currently in need of volunteers for its kayak team.

Visit www.warksar.org.uk for further details.

Reader Travel

Check out all of the latest reader travel offers to get your hands on some free gifts.

Subscribe

Receive a weekly update to your inbox by signing up to our weekly newsletter.

Online Editions

Catch up on your local news by reading our e-editions on the Stratford Observer.

Advertising

Advertise with the Stratford Observer to reach your audience