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Friday, February 7, 2025

Police to get new drone car as tech improvements planned for 2024

Our police drone team is set to reach new heights next year thanks to the continued dedication of the unit to keep the people of Nottinghamshire safe.

The team, set up in 2020, has 15 pilots who fit drone shifts around their other responsibilities as police officers, giving the force eyes in the sky to be deployed and help with a whole range of incidents.

The unit is also well known across the country as being one of the best policing drone units.

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With six high-tech drones of various sizes and capabilities, the team can be deployed to anything from:

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– Supporting with arrests

– Crowd control

– Intelligence gathering

– Crime scene investigation

– Searching for missing people

– And the monitoring of fire.

Thanks to the continued dedication of chief drone sergeant Vince Saunders and Chief Inspector Chris Sutcliffe, building on the progress that’s been made over the last three years, the team is set to trial new software in the new year to help when searching vast open areas find people and items involved in an incident.

After noticing the limitations they were up against when responding to jobs in the rain and bad weather – a brand new police vehicle is due to be kitted up and used as a mini command vehicle making it easier for officers to reach remote locations and deploy in all weather.

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The addition of a dedicated drone car will also help the newly-trained remote pilots to respond to incidents 24/7.

In an aim to further improve the unit and knowledge across the force, a monthly police drones strategic group was set up allowing officers, partners, and stakeholders to discuss how drones can assist their cases – helping advance and grow the use of drones within the force.

Chief Inspector Chris Sutcliffe, who has helped play a fundamental part in growing the team, said:

“We’ve been able to identify our limitations in the team and have now trained even more officers meaning our drone fleet can now give officers on the ground 24/7 access to aerial support – which would have been unthinkable a few years back.

“Our eyes in the sky can now do the job of dozens of officers freeing up PCs and other teams to do their work on the ground but most importantly our cameras can help find missing people quickly as demonstrated by our new recruits.

“Next year the team will be strengthened even further thanks to the introduction of our new dedicated drone vehicle but also a trial of software to help us with our searches for missing people in vast areas.

“As a team, we’ve been working incredibly hard and will continue to advance the team so we can continue being one of the best police drone units in the country and leading trying new tech to help keep the people of Nottinghamshire safe.”

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