the team

Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team provides a vital, life-saving, emergency search and rescue service across the whole of the Northumbria Police area. This vast and largely remote and unpopulated area encompasses all of Northumberland and Tyne and Wear, and measures approximately 5,000km².

The Team is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and responds, along with North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team, to a wide range of incidents including:

  • Mountain/hill search and/or rescues – for missing, overdue or injured outdoor enthusiasts (walkers, fell/trail runners, mountain bikers, climbers, etc.), in summer and winter conditions.
  • Lowland searches – for high-risk, vulnerable and despondent individuals who are missing from home in urban and rural areas (e.g. elderly individuals living with dementia, young children).
  • Lowland rescues – of injured and in some cases deceased individuals in ‘difficult to access’ places for the statutory emergency services.
  • Water search and rescue – for kayakers/canoeists and other water-related incidents, where bankside and in water search and rescue capability is required.
  • Resilience – working alongside the statutory emergency services in responding to severe/extreme weather events (e.g. snowbound motorists, families trapped by flood waters).

Last year we spent 290 days directly involved in operational search and rescue activities. This figure excludes the 8288 volunteer hours involved in governance and administration, training, vehicle and equipment maintenance, fundraising and liaison with other agencies.

These incidents regularly involve co-responding with other emergency services, notably Northumbria Police, North East Ambulance Service, Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service, HM Coastguard and the Great North Air Ambulance Service.

Team members walking up snow covered hill.
Team members training rope skills in the dark.

Operational team members are all active outdoor people, who have chosen to ‘put something back’ into the activities they enjoy by volunteering their time and skills to provide a Mountain Rescue service in Northumberland and Tyne and Wear.

Members come from a wide variety of professions and live throughout our operational area. They continuously train in the core skills required of all operational members and are equipped to enable them to operate safely and effectively in all types of terrain and in all seasons, day or night.

The Team is committed to promoting safety in the hills and actively supports the #AdventureSmart campaign. Members will often be found providing support for outdoor events such as fell and trail races or mountain bike races. We also give talks and slide presentations on the work of the Team and how to be safe in the hills to local interested groups.

If you wish to contact the Team to arrange a talk or discuss the possibility of the Team’s presence at an event you are organising please get in touch using our contact form.