This evening the team welcomed Inspector Neil Sherry from the Lancashire Constabulary Search Planning Unit and Lindsay from Lancashire Constabulary Emergency Planning.

They had both journeyed to our base from Lancashire Constabulary headquarters to instruct our Team Leader, Deputy Team Leader and three other callout contacts in the use of police TETRA Personal Radio Generation 2 MTH 650 handsets.

These handsets are standard issue to all front line operational police staff and in certain circumstances (under Police ownership) can be used by trained Mountain Rescue personnel.

The purpose of these radios will be to give greater flexibility to our communications and our own command structure in the event of search operations and/or multi-agency rescue operations.

We are very grateful to Neil and Lindsay for giving up their time this evening to journey to our base to provide the neccessary training to enable our leaders and callout contacts to utilise these radio handsets in the future.

(The team also maintains its own radio system under the England & Wales national Mountain Rescue radio system)