Letters to the Editor, Teesdale Mercury

Letters to the Editor

May 29, 2002

SIR – Last week over 100 Mountain Rescue personnel,



assisted by a RAF Search and Rescue helicopter and a police aircraft, spent 16 hours searching moorland in the south west of County Durham for a missing walker who had spent the night in a local B&B unaware of the massive search which was underway.

It was widely reported in the local and national press (with the notable exception of the Teesdale Mercury) that this search had “cost the taxpayer £55,000,” with costs to the nine mountain rescue teams involved amounting to £5,000.

These figures give a false impression of the costs involved and do a great injustice to the volunteers who belong to the Mountain Rescue Service.

All mountain rescue teams in this country are made up of unpaid volunteers who are prepared to give up their time, often at considerable personal expense, to offer a search and rescue service to anyone lost or missing from home, not only in upland areas but increasingly in semi-urban areas.

In order to run this service, money needs to be raised from collections and donations from the general public. There is NO COST to the taxpayer.

Operating costs for the RAF helicopter and the police aircraft, which were involved in the search, would have been incurred in the normal course of events, if not dealing with an incident then in training. The same costs are incurred daily whether in training or on operations.

Only four days after this reportedly “costly” search, our team and others on either side of the Pennines willingly, and at no cost to the taxpayer, searched for an overdue walker who tragically lost his life in severe weather on the High Pennines.

As with all the other emergency services, when we are called out we do not know if it will turn into an actual incident or be a false alarm.

However, the same commitment of personnel and equipment must be given.

The last thing mountain rescue teams want is for concerned companions or relatives to delay calling out the teams because of the perceived costs.

Alan Best

Team Leader

Teesdale & Weardale Search & Rescue Team

Rescue Centre,

Bede Kirk,

Barnard Castle.



Sir – 'Need to share a good day.

Like Alan Byde, (Mercury, May 22) I have good days that I feel should be shared with others. Perhaps he has hit upon a good idea for the Mercury – instead of the doom and gloom we expect from the media, you should encourage your readers to write in about the good things that happen in life.

Unfortunately, I must award him a black mark for his snipe at low-flying.

Low-flying may appear to have reduced from his days in Middleton. I suspect, however, only in as far as the diversion of MOD’s limited resources of military aircraft to overseas commitments has affected numbers of UK training sorties.

To name a few diversions, the former Yugoslavia, Turkey and the Gulf to combat Saddam Hussein’s ambitions, Afghan-istan, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the Falkland Islands, not forgetting those on standby to search for missing sailors, walkers and, incidentally, to defend the UK etc.

Those aircraft that remain in the UK continue to train, and rightly so.

He will not find much military low-flying in New Zealand since the Royal New Zealand Air Force has recently been effectively disbanded, retaining, I believe, only a limited maritime and transport capability.

He has perhaps, chosen wisely, given his aversion to low- flying aircraft.

Let us all think nice things about our Armed Forces; funny we always complain when they are not there when we want them.

J Sewell

Lane Side,

Middleton-in-Teesdale.