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Rescue Centre
The Team currently has two Bases, one at the fire station in Durham City and a
second at the Quad Base in Barnard Castle.
The Team's base at Durham is named The Chris Scott Search and Rescue Centre in
honour of one of the team's founder members who worked tirelessly for the team
both operationally and behind the scenes for many years. It has a large double
garage, briefing room, control room, archive store, equipment store and drying room.
The Barnard Castle base is in the new Quad Base in Barnard Castle alongside the
Police, Fire and Ambulance services - this was the first base in the entire country to
serve all four emergency services. Here we have shared use of a garage, access to
the drying room and our own office.
The Team has had a variety of buildings during its history.
The first base was a wooden hut next to the car park at High Force in Upper Teesdale
provided by Raby Estate. There are many former Team members with fond memories of exercises
run from the hut and weekends spent sleeping on the concrete floor.
The next development was a collection of garages rented from Teesdale District Council and
located in Barnard Castle. These provided storage for team vehicles and a limited amount of office space,
but nothing more. Team training continued to be carried out at a variety of locations including the
Wheatsheaf Inn in Staindrop, Staindrop Comprehensive School and the social club at Bishop Auckland
Police Station.
In December 1998, towards the end of the lease period for the garages, the Team received an offer
from the Durham Police Authority of some land behind Barnard Castle Police Station. After a frantic
two years of planning and fund-raising (including help from the National Lottery) the purpose built
Rescue Centre was officially opened by Lord Barnard on Saturday 31st March 2001.
The Rescue Centre consisted of a double garage area for the vehicles, which included a rope training wall,
shaft rescue platform and adjustable slope. This base also included a control room with archive store and an
upstairs large meeting / presentation room.
In 2017 the team moved into the new Quad Base in Barnard Castle alongside the Police, Fire and
Ambulance services.
Since the Quad base couldn't offer the Team the full range of facilities required we also opened a second
base at the fire station in Durham City.
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