Volunteers at the West Cornwall Search & Rescue Team have responded to four requests for help within the first two weeks of January.

Based in St Day, the team said they would normally average a couple of callouts each month.

Paul Oliver, who is the team leader, said: "We received a couple of requests earlier in the month to assist our neighbours from East Cornwall Search & Rescue Team with searches in Bodmin and Par.

"Both of these incidents resulted in a successful outcome, with the missing persons being found and reunited with their families.

"Then last week we were tasked to a search in our own patch, down at Treen, near Lands End. We worked alongside Coastguard, RNLI and the Police to try to locate a missing person."

Mr Oliver said a few days later, the team, which covers the TR postcode areas of Cornwall, assisted the South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust in recovering a walker on Penwith Moors, near Morvah, who sustained a lower leg injury from slipping on the boggy terrain.

The West Cornwall Search & Rescue Team forms part of the network of mountain and lowland search and rescue teams that provide voluntary inland cover across the UK.

Andy Brelsford, the team chairman, said: "Although we operate as part of the emergency services, we are a charity and have to constantly fund raise to cover the costs of providing our life-saving support, including buying and running two vehicles, replacing first aid supplies and the cost of maintaining and replacing vital rescue equipment.

“Everyone here is a volunteer and gives their time freely. But its not just the dramatic image of responding to a missing person search or casualty rescue. We also spend many hours in training and on fund raising activities.”

With the team’s annual running costs are around £20,000, Mr Brelsford added: "We rely on the generosity of the people of Cornwall who pop spare change in our collection tins, sponsor our fundraisers and take an interest in our work by following us online."

For more information about the work of West Cornwall Search and Rescue Team, visit their website at www.westcornwallsar.co.uk