DARTMOOR Search and Rescue team in Tavistock has received £2,000 from Devon County Council for training and equipment. The team in Tavistock, a charity with more than 40 volunteers, provides search and rescue support to the emergency services when people become lost or injured on Dartmoor and surrounding rural areas. Training in the latest techniques is essential. Team leaders are attending a refresher course this month and two members of their control team recently attended a residential search, planning and management course to learn systematic search and rescue procedures. Tim Forster, equipment officer for DSRT Tavistock, said: ?Our training course fees alone this year amount to over £1,500, and with ongoing maintenance and repairs to our equipment and vehicles to pay for, this donation is most welcome.? Cllr Roy Connelly, chairman of the council?s West Devon county committee and a Tavistock resident, obtained the funding from his allocation of the county committee?s grant for local groups or projects that benefit the community. He said: ?We all value the work the DSRT undertake on behalf of the community. Incidents such as the rescue operation and support of the Ten Tors scheme is but one example, where young people and their families see at first hand the quality of work this group carries out.? So far this year the team has responded to 24 callouts, with many hours spent locating people and bringing them back to safety. The volunteers train weekly as a group with exercises in all weather conditions, day and night, on the moor.
