Following the lead taken by Mountain Rescue Teams in North Wales and Cumbria in association with their respective Police Forces, an IT based GIS call out system for MRTs in Lancashire is being actively considered by Lancashire Constabulary, which as with the system in North Wales and Cumbria will also contain a database reference on the capabilities and resources of MRTs in the Lancashire Constabulary Force area.
Known as SARCall, a basic requirement is very accurate operational area boundaries for MRTs wishing to utilise and operate within the system, something which has never been fully determined within Lancashire, with each team having variations in what it considers to be its primary operational area.
This evening, the Team Leaders of Bolton MRT Garry Rhodes MBE, Bowland Pennine MRT Phil O’Brien and Rossendale & Pendle MRT Andy Simpson, all met at our Ladybridge Hall Base / HQ to mutually agree and accurately determine the operational boundaries between our respective team areas.
Bolton MRT team member Steve Fletcher did a sterling job at the PC translating all three Team Leaders ideas as to their team areas into one working map, with definitive boundaries established, based on historical boundaries with some changes to reflect the response times of MRTs to some parts of their area, and how some teams may mutually assist each other.
All three Team Leaders also agreed on the creation of some joint response areas, to better serve the need of casualties in rescue situations, whilst not changing teams primary operational area boundaries as such.
This information will now be forwarded to Simon Harris of Bowland Pennine MRT who is liaising with Lancashire Constabulary regarding the implementation of this system, the boundaries will also be informed to NWAS (Lancashire) who will be able to use such information when directly calling out MRTs, by local arrangement.
On a related note, Garry and Andy also agreed to jointly respond to some areas in Greater Manchester which currently sit entirely within either the Bolton or the Rossendale & Pendle MRTs primary operational areas.
