A couple of friends and I were out exploring last night, a magnificent old building constructed in 1808 as a college and seminary in County Durham. After having explored the site for a little over two hours we headed towards our exit and heard a helicopter flying above.

Quickly we ducked back into the building and decided to wait it out and have a cigarette while we waited for the thing to pass overhead so we were not seen exiting the place. After a bit of discussion we agreed that it was unlikely they would send out a helicopter for us, a couple of trespassers and after waiting for 15 minutes and still no signs of the helicopter moving on any, we decided to just exit anyway. One set of ninja manoeuvres to get out quickly and we walked clear of the building and started taking our external shots of the place. The helicopter was hovering close to the place, but not quite over it so we assumed it was perhaps there for something going on over at the road nearby.

After we had our external shots we walked over to exit the fence surrounding the place to find two police officers waiting, and it hit home rather quickly that indeed the helicopter was there for us.

Luckily it was just a case of us explaining to them that we were just there taking photographs, and to back this up i always carry a little printed 12 page booklet with some examples of my previous urbex pictures, and showed the officers the pictures in our cameras to show we had just been doing the same. They took our details and carried out a couple of quick PNC checks whilst having a chat with us about the dangers inherent to the hobby etc and then sent us on our merry way, at which point we saw two police vans sitting over at the end of the building around the corner.

Now I’m used to police attention whilst exploring, often security or a busy body in the area will call them out and we will be questioned, which has lead to me being arrested on a couple of occasions and then being released after questioning. I can understand this entirely, and in a way am quite thankful for it as it helps to prevent the pikies from stealing the lead from the roofs, the copper from the floors and generally just trashing these places that we like to visit.

I do however think that the helicopter was a bit excessive, especially as we had parked our car about a quarter mile from the site, and it was the farmer near to where we had parked who had called in the incident to the police. They knew where our vehicle was, they had the name and address of the owner from a vehicle check no doubt, so why then would they need to send out a helicopter to look for us as well as the two vehicle sand four officers? Whilst I appreciate that they will not have been able to find or see us due to the fact we were in the building, they knew exactly where we would head once we left the building, so they could have simply caught us at that point.

A quick search of google turned up the following information for the cost of a police helicopter for one year; £1,216,542 for 1294 flights, but unfortunately due to the varying nature of the duration of these flights these figures can not be used to calculate the cost per hour of a helicopter to the force. I did manage to find however that if a helicopter is called in by a neighbouring county’s police force then it would be charged at £1,500 per hour. These figures are also based on 05-06 data, so presumably due to increasing fuel charges this figure is now much greater. Working on that figure though, and the half hour stated by one of the officers that they were at the site, they have spent at least £750 to keep a helicopter in the air to look for us at a site no bigger than a football field, and could have easily stopped us for questioning or whatever else they pleased when we returned to the car. It all just seems a little wasteful and keen to use the helicopter to me.

Anyway, we were let go without arrest or charge, and the explore was really quite enjoyable and turned out some nice pictures, so ultimately it was quite a good explore for us. Pictures to come soon.

~Shepy