Northumberland mountain rescue volunteers receive award

Andrew Miller and Ninette Edwards from Northumberland National Park Mountain Rescue Team were among volunteers who received awards from the High Sheriff of Northumberland, Joanna Riddell.

They were both praised for their ‘selfless dedication to their team and local community’ at a ceremony.

Andrew, from Rothbury, has over 33 years service in mountain rescue and has held a number of officer positions including a period of time as team leader. He is currently one of the duty controllers, the first point of the contact for statutory emergency services.

Andrew also leads the group’s engagement with Northumberland Fire & Rescue Service on wildfires.

Throughout the pandemic, Andrew has been very active with the Northumbria Local Resilience Forum (LRF) Executive and Tactical Group overseeing the area’s response to Covid-19.

In addition, Andrew also took on the role as the single point of contact with Public Health England ensuring the team received good advice when dealing with potential Covid contacts and he coordinated the vaccination process for team members.

Ninette, from Whittingham, has been a team member for over six years as an operational member and has single handedly sought out new sources of income, prepared bids for

funding and successfully secured over £25,000 of funding to offset ‘lost’ income through donations and other fundraising events.

With annual running costs of £45,000, the funding secured by Ninette was critical, particularly in a year which was its busiest on record for incidents as people headed outdoors as the lockdown eased.

Over the last two years, Ninette’s fundraising efforts have also enabled the team to purchase a third response vehicle, based in Rothbury; avalanche transceivers, probes and shovels to ensure team members are safe when operating in winter conditions; replacement helmets and rechargeable head torches and handheld search torches.

Team leader Iain Nixon said: “These awards are thoroughly well deserved. As a general rule, we try not to single out individuals within the team, but there is no doubt that both Andrew and Ninette have gone ‘above and beyond’ for the team and their local communities and we are immensely grateful.”