THE Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team has a new member – a state-of-the-art rescue vehicle.

The team, based at Dunsop Bridge, has just taken delivery of the £34,000 incident control vehicle installed with all the latest high-tech gadgets.

The van has a built-in office containing electronic maps, global positioning systems, laptop computers and the internet.

Paul Durham, the team’s fundraising officer, said: “For the first time ever we are going to be in a position where we can take a mobile office and employ all the modern technology on the site of the incident.

“It will improve the speed of our searches and will also make it safer for our members as we will be able to track them down and identify where they are quickly and efficiently.”

The van was purchased for £14,000 and the portable office was created by Westhoughton-based coach builder Coleman Milne at a cost of £20,000.

The rescue team, staffed entirely by volunteers, is regularly called out by Lancashire police to search for missing persons, vulnerable people and even injured and confused people who have wandered away from crashed veh-icles.

These incidents are in addition to the team’s normal call-outs, searches for missing, lost and inj-ured hill walkers, climbers and mountaineers.

Meanwhile, the team has launched a campaign to buy a new mini-bus to transport friends and family of an injured person to the hospital.

Mr Durham, said: “When we are called out to an injured walker, they are treated by us and evac-uated to the road-head by stretcher where they are transferred over to the ambulance service and taken to hospital.

“The rest of the walking party, however, are often stranded miles away from their own vehicles or overnight accommodation.”