Night landing for air ambulance

A NEW night-time emergency landing site for Devon Air Ambulance is to be created in Paignton as part of a county-wide network.

Torbay planners approved the scheme and were told the local community has already raised half the £6,500 needed. The charity will come up with the rest to pay for a 10m (33ft) lighting column next to the playing field at Foxhole Community Centre in Paignton.

Two floodlights on the column will be switched on when the field is needed for the helicopter to touch down on an emergency call-out in the area.

The site is behind homes in Belfield Road on its south-eastern side and Pimm Road to the south-west, near Kings Ash Academy.

Councillors heard the charity was keen on the site because it was close to the A380 with good access to Torbay Hospital. Devon Air Ambulance Trust is setting up a network of “community landing sites” and the lighting means it can extend operations in the dark up to midnight.

The lights would be switched on and off by a phone call activated by the helicopter emergency medical services team.

The trust says the lighting would reduce the risks and time taken to land, and help paramedics assess and load a patient into the helicopter. Because of an objection to the planning application, the issue was referred to councillors on Torbay’s development management committee to decide at its meeting on Monday, September 10.

But councillor Dave Thomas, leader of the Conservative group on the authority, said the local community backed the scheme. The report says light would extend about 40m (130ft) from the column, which would be about 70m (230ft) from the gardens of homes in Belfield Road and 60m (200ft) from homes in Pimm Road.