Drone search and rescue cover in Crediton

Crediton sits low in the valley of the river Creedy, with steep hills of red sandstone climbing away on both sides. That shape works well for a market town, sheltered and compact, but it works against anyone trying to search the ground around it on foot. From the valley floor, the hills cut off the view within a few hundred metres in almost every direction, and from the top of one hill, the fields on the far side of the next one are simply out of sight.

The land around Crediton is some of the most productive farming country in Devon, a patchwork of large arable fields, pasture and orchards running up both sides of the valley. Someone, or something, that has moved off a farm track or through a gap in a hedge can end up on a neighbouring farm within a few fields, invisible from where anyone started looking, purely because of the shape of the ground rather than the distance covered.

The valley traps damp air in a way the open hilltops around it don't, so mist can sit low over the Creedy long after it has lifted from higher ground nearby. That's worse than it sounds for a search on foot, because the mist tends to settle in exactly the dips and hollows where visibility would otherwise be best, while the hilltops stay clear the whole time.

An aerial view from above that layer of mist, or a thermal pass once the light has gone, gives a search a way to check that low ground without waiting for it to lift on its own, which on a bad day here can take most of the morning.

Crediton is also open to Atlantic weather arriving from the west with little to slow it, so a still, misty morning in the valley can turn windy within an hour once the front actually reaches the hills. Livestock straying off one of the working farms around the Creedy is a regular reason a flight goes up here, since a sheep or a bullock through a gap in a hedge can be several fields away and out of sight before anyone on foot has finished checking the one it left.

Holy Cross Church and the High Street sit at the centre of Crediton and work well as a starting point for briefing before a search moves out into the surrounding farmland. From there, the valley runs roughly east to west, and knowing which side a person was last seen on usually points straight to which set of hills and which run of fields needs checking first, rather than trying to cover the whole valley at once.

Downes House and the parkland around it sit on the edge of town too, and give another fixed point when a search widens further out along the valley toward Okehampton or Barnstaple, both within easy driving distance once the direction of travel is known.