The team has had an unprecedented (at least in recent times) quiet period without any callouts or incidents – broken this afternoon by a call to assist Lancashire Constabulary with the report of a missing person.

Early this morning a car was found in a ditch alongside the moorland road between Belmont and Rivington, having crashed off the road with no trace of the driver. An immediate Police search took place around the moorland location of this car which failed to locate the driver or any occupants of the vehicle. Throughout the morning Police enquiries established that the single occupant of the car, a 40 year old male, was missing giving cause for concern for the welfare of this person.

At 14:20 our Team Leader was in contact Lancashire Constabulary resulting in a full team callout at 14:31, with the intention of carrying out an intensive search of the area surrounding the crashed car’s location, to try and locate the driver. Meanwhile Police efforts and enquiries continued to try and locate the whereabouts of this person if he wasn’t on the moors.

21 team members, most of whom had been at our base with regards to the BBC visit (See previous entry) were able to make a very quick initial response and began assembling at the Hordern Stoops car park area between Rivington and Belmont.

With members awaiting the arrival of Police search managers, and a cold wind blowing with rain starting to fall, news came in that the missing man, subject to a joint Lancashire and Greater Manchester Police enquiry to trace his whereabouts had been traced to a location in the west of Greater Manchester and the team was stood down on scene at 15:34 without having started any search, but having setup its control trailer and catering trailer in anticipation of a search taking place.