New air ambulance landing site in Otterton

Stantyway Recreation Field has been equipped with a new LED lighting column with a remote switching system, so that the floodlights can be activated by the air ambulance's Helicopter Emergency Medical Services team using a smartphone.

'Let there be light' - Toby Russell from Devon Air Ambulance shows how the lights are activated remotely using a mobile phone (Image: Peter Bowler)

Toby Russell, the air ambulance's Community Landing Sites Development Officer, explained: “The lighting helps our crews by illuminating the area during landing and take-off, as well as helping medical teams when moving around the ground and for the safe carrying and loading of a patient into the helicopter.

“Added to this, we have surveyed the site so that our crews can get a better understanding of the features of the football pitch and the landscape surrounding it before they arrive on scene by helicopter.”

Following the installation of the lighting, members of the parish council and project funders visited the field to meet Toby and hear about the importance of community landing sites.

Toby Russell explains the system to the grandson of Alan Lowe from the Budleigh Salterton Lions Club (Image: Peter Bowler)

A parish council spokesperson said: “Otterton Parish Council are delighted to see the opening of the night landing site at Stantyway Recreation Field at Otterton. Whilst we sincerely hope that the site is seldom used it gives the ability, in times of need, for medical teams to reach local patients and, if necessary, transport them by air to a specialist hospital avoiding the time taken when navigating the busy lanes and roads around Otterton, especially in the summer months.

“We are enormously grateful to the local sponsors who helped to make this happen including county councillors Christine Channon and Claire Wright, Ladram Bay Holiday Park, KACH Developments and Budleigh Salterton Lions.”

Andy Mitchell, secretary of Otterton Football Club, said: “Following our initial conversations with Devon Air Ambulance, as a club The Otters were immediately keen to help set up a night landing site and support the new lighting solution being installed at Stantyway Recreation Field.

“We all know just how important it is to get early treatment if you have a medical problem or are involved in an accident and so this new site could make all the difference to a local patient when they really need it.”

The group raise their glasses to the new landing site (Image: Peter Bowler)