Monmouth MP David Davies is backing a campaign for mountain rescue teams to be given more financial support.
During a visit to the Abergavenny headquarters of Longtown Mountain Rescue Team on Wednesday evening (13th November), Mr Davies met with members to discuss their work and listen to pleas for more government funding.
As well as experiencing being strapped into a specialist stretcher designed to immobilise casualties, he tested the heavy kit that members carry on all rescues.
Mr Davies’ visit came after the team’s umbrella organisation, Mountain Rescue England and Wales (MREW), held an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament last month calling on Welsh and English teams to receive equal funding to their Scottish counterparts.
Scottish rescuers receive about £13,926 per team but Welsh teams receive an average of just £3,246 per year towards their running costs, which are an average of £25,000. The shortfall has to be made up by fundraising by volunteer team members.
Luke Lewis, deputy team leader from Longtown MRT, said: "The team is attending more call outs than ever before and members respond 24/7, day or night, whatever the weather. We are all volunteers and all have jobs and families.
"Team members are also expected to help in fundraising activities to pay for the service we provide. Over the next few months our fundraising will include collections in Abergavenny town centre on Saturday 30th November and in Hereford on 14th December.
“We’d like to call on the UK Government to increase our funding to give us level pegging with our Scottish counterparts, who receive almost four times as much as us, and ease some of the burden on our members at a time when our service is more vital than ever."
MREW head of fundraising, Mike France, said: “Volunteer rescuers, about 3,600 of them in England and Wales, are available 24/7 throughout the year for local call outs and they have to train for many different situations and needs. So it seems crazy that they also have to find time for fundraising just to keep their teams going.
“We’re hoping that our visit to Westminster will have shown MPs the huge discrepancy between the financial support given by government to Scottish rescuers – about £14,000 per team – and the much more limited funding to Welsh teams of just over £3,000.”
Mr France said if government could guarantee a level of funding from the public purse closer to the Scottish figure, teams would be able to underwrite investments in vehicles and essential kit and subsidise essential training and insurance.
“Our volunteer rescuers would be able to focus on getting the job done rather than having to worry about money,” he added.
Mr Davies said: “Longtown Mountain Rescue Team does such a fantastic job and I want to pay tribute to the volunteers who give their time and effort to both fundraise and help people in trouble.
“They really are the extra emergency service and I believe it is important to acknowledge how they put their lives at risk for the safety of others.
“I was pleased to be able to learn more about the team’s history, how it operates and the challenges which it is facing.
"I will certainly continue to work with my colleagues in Parliament to move this important campaign forward and explore the options for future funding.”
There are 10 mountain rescue teams in Wales, all are made up of volunteers who are on call 24/7. Teams work closely with police forces across Wales answering calls to help missing or injured people in rural and remote areas.