VOLUNTEERS from Merseyside Search and Rescue (MerSAR) have now successfully become a fully-qualified Lowland Rescue team.

Approval came after the 21-strong team, ranging from teachers and architects to administrators and paramedics, recently passed an assessment from the Association of Lowland Rescue (ALSAR), which sets the training standards all voluntary groups from across the country have to meet when searching for high risk missing and vulnerable people.

Their success means MerSAR, which is on one of 36 Lowland Rescue teams across the UK, can now carry out their own, solo searches, without merely assisting other search teams from elsewhere in the region that are already approved by the ALSAR.

MerSAR's head of operations Tom Matthews said the assessment, which looked at team organisation, search skills and policies took almost two years to train and prepare for.

He said: "We have been focusing on this for 18 months and it's involved everything from getting our equipment up to standard, getting our IT systems working as they should, to being able to manage a whole search basically.

"It's been a real team effort throughout."

Since becoming an approved member team of Lowland Rescue, Matthews was keen to praise the dedication shown from its voluntary team, who are on call 24 hrs seven days a week.

He said: "There was a lot of effort from all the team members for training at weekends, evenings and then for coming down for assessment day.

"Everyone was there on time, everyone responded and everyone did what they needed to do to get us over the line. They were outstanding."

As well as achieving national accreditation, two of MerSAR’s members also gained approval as accredited Team Leaders, having been judged to have met the standards set by Lowland Rescue.

On their success, Neil Balderson from Lowland Rescue said: "It's no short undertaking to become a member team of ALSAR, it's hard work and it's not something you achieve in two or three weeks.

"It takes at least a year plus of dedication and it's a really serious piece of work that's been undertaken. We're super proud of what they've done."

As Merseyside’s own, dedicated Lowland Search & Rescue team, MerSAR will now independently work with Merseyside Police as they continue to assist them for finding high risk, vulnerable missing people within Merseyside.