Severn Area Rescue Association

Supporting police and emergency services across the Severn region with lifeboat, flood, land, and rope rescue teams.

Severn Area Rescue Association

Supporting police and emergency services across the Severn region with lifeboat, flood, land, and rope rescue teams.

Severn Area Rescue Association

Supporting police and emergency services across the Severn region with lifeboat, flood, land, and rope rescue teams.

Severn Area Rescue Association

Supporting police and emergency services across the Severn region with lifeboat, flood, land, and rope rescue teams.

SARA Rescue Network

SARA is a volunteer search and rescue organisation which supports the emergency services. The 200 SARA volunteers operate Inshore Lifeboats and conduct Search and Rescue operations on land and water, covering a wide area around the River Severn. They are called out over 100 times every year.
SARA operates seven Lifeboat Search & Rescue stations, mainly along the length of the Severn. These are at Newport, Beachley (Chepstow), Sharpness, Tewkesbury, Upton, Wyre Forest (Kidderminster) and Cotswolds (Cirencester). In addition, a base at South Gloucester currently operates as a satellite of Sharpness Lifeboat Station.

What We Do

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Lifeboat Search & Rescue

Saving lives at sea and on tidal waters

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Flood & Inland Water Rescue

Responding to floods and river emergencies

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Land Search & Rescue

Locating vulnerable
missing people

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Cliff & Steep-Ground Rescue

Reaching those in
hard-to-access places

Lifeboat Search & Rescue

SARA provides the official inshore lifeboat cover for the Severn Estuary and tidal River Severn below Gloucester, and the tidal River Usk; areas not covered by the RNLI.
There are 5 lifeboats, 2 each at Beachley and Sharpness, plus one at Newport. Sharpness also operates a hovercraft for conducting rescues on the mud flats and sand banks of the Severn. Lifeboats are launched within 10 minutes of a call from the Coastguard. Lifeboat crew carry pagers and are on call 24 hours a day, every day. The nature of callouts includes vessels in distress or aground, persons seen in the water or those at risk on one of the several bridges in SARA’s area.

Flood & Inland Water Rescue

Most rescue stations have boats and teams for flood and river rescue - SARA declares 6 official flood teams to 'National Resilience’. Much of the Severn area is prone to flooding, particularly at Tewkesbury. In addition, all stations have swift-water rescue (‘SRT’) teams, who can operate with or without boats for shallow water searches and rescues.

Land Search

Teams from Beachley, Tewkesbury, Wyre Forest and Cotswolds undertake open area searches for high-risk risk vulnerable missing people on behalf of the police forces in Gloucestershire, West Mercia and West Midlands. Principally, these are people with some form of dementia or are despondent or vulnerable, or occasionally simply lost for whatever reason.

Cliff & Steep-Ground Rescue

SARA provides cliff rescue, primarily on the popular climbing areas of the Wye Valley at Chepstow and Symonds Yat. The team covers the whole of Gloucestershire, and similar techniques are used to rescue casualties from steep ground.

Get In Touch

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