THE cost and details of the police helicopter activity in south Worcestershire over the past year has been revealed to your Worcester News following a Freedom of Information Act request.

South Worcestershire police used the helicopter 180 times in the 12 months up to May 31, 2010, at a cost of just under £50,000.

The helicopter is managed by the Central Counties Air Operations Unit, based in Stourbridge – a joint operation funded by West Mercia Police and Staffordshire Police.

The unit has the biggest inland operating area in the UK for a police helicopter, ranging from Buxton in the north to Ross-on- Wye in the south – a population of more than 3.3 million.

The helicopter, Air One, can reach any part of West Mercia and Staffordshire in 19 minutes and can stay airborne for two and a half hours before refuelling.

Each time south Worcestershire police need to use Air One it costs £522.34 per flight hour.

We asked for a breakdown of operational and non-operational uses but were told that all flights are classed as operational.

West Mercia Police were unable to provide brief details of all 180 flights as the cost of providing your Worcester News with the information exceeded the ‘appropriate level’ as stated in the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.

The force was able to provide details of the use of Air One by south Worcestershire police between December 1, 2009, and May 31, 2010.

In this period the helicopter was requested 81 times with the air unit responding to 65 of those requests. The largest number of flights occurred while the police carried out search operations.

Searching for suspects accounted for 14 flights, 12 flights were needed to search for missing vulnerable people and the helicopter was used six times to search for vehicles involved in crimes.

Nine miscellaneous searches were also carried out in this period.

For 17 of these flights the usage was recorded as aerial imagery where the force recorded photographic and video evidence, and captured images for tactical planning.

Air One was used three times for public relations, for example when the aircraft is taken to schools or police open days. For three flights the usage was logged as tactical incident management with two vehicle pursuits and one use for area containment.

South Worcestershire police used the helicopter once for surveillance as part of an intelligence gathering operation.

In a report of the force’s financial accounts which was presented to the police authority’s audit committee, the total cost of the Central Counties Air Unit for the year up to March 31, 2010, was £1,021,000. West Mercia Police contributed £544,000 to this cost and Staffordshire Police paid £477,000.

The 50 per cent ownership of Air One is noted as a fixed asset worth £2.8 million.