At just six years old, London Search and Rescue (LONSAR) is the most recently established of the 36 Lowland Rescue teams and the first in a city environment. 

Despite its iconic skyline and urban sprawl, Greater London within the M25 is over 40% public green space, including over 3,000 parks and commons. This presents a significant challenge in finding those who go missing.

Incident Control Units (ICUs) are the operational command centre for LONSAR, which is funded entirely by charitable donations. The team supports the police in London in searches for vulnerable missing people across London, helping in their mission to end preventable loss of life.

With two state-of-the-art vehicles becoming operational, thanks to a donation from London Freemasons, the team are able to locate more strategically across London, respond more quickly to incidents and deal with multiple incidents if required.

Celebrating the launch of the ICUs, an official launch was held on May 24th at the Guildhall in London, where volunteers of the charity showcased the vehicles to the two police forces.

Inspector Daniel Green, a Police Search Advisor with the City of London Police, said, “The vans are excellent and full of great equipment that will really help our searches should we ever need assistance. Partnerships like this are vital, ensuring we have access to real-time mapping, which means we can deploy key resources to best locate high-risk missing people.”

Tackling a widespread crisis

James Walker, a member of the LONSAR Senior Leadership Team and a Trustee of the national charity, Missing People, highlighted the extent of the challenge of missing persons across the UK: “Research shows that someone is reported missing every 90 seconds in the United Kingdom”

Reflecting on his leadership role with the team he says. “In London, that translates to over 42,000 missing person reports being filed in London each year, of which at least 10% are considered to be the most vulnerable people in our communities. As a team, LONSAR are on a journey to provide a highly trained team of Search Technicians with the latest vehicles, equipment and technology to respond quickly to support the Police when someone goes missing in our capital. The sooner a missing person is found and receives medical care, the better their chances are for survival.”

Foot search is the core building block of LONSAR’s work, but its volunteers can also train in specialist skills, joining dog, water, kayak, bike, medic or drone teams – all led from the ICU. The two ICUs demonstrate a significant expansion of capabilities of the team and were only secured through the generosity of London Freemasons.

Chief Operating Officer for London Freemasons, Matthew Christmas, spoke about the donation: “London Freemasons are delighted to have been able to donate £251,500 to London Search and Rescue, to purchase in full these two new Incident Control Units. We are proud to support the work of LONSAR, an organisation of volunteers, all of whom provide such an invaluable service and on call 24/7 and are reliant on charitable donations. London Freemasons have a great tradition of supporting emergency services across London which do so much to protect Londoners and the hundreds of thousands who come into London every day.”

The team at LONSAR are optimistic about their growth, continuing to develop partnerships with different emergency services and the new possibilities created by these ICUs for more efficient and safe rescue missions that can ultimately save lives and help families across London.

This article is part of the Arena Magazine, Issue 55 Summer 2024 edition.
Arena Magazine is the official magazine of the London Freemasons – Metropolitan Grand Lodge and Metropolitan Grand Chapter of London.

Read more articles in the Arena Issue 55 here.