The former Marsden Fire Station is now the Holme Valley MRT headquarters

A mountain rescue team has achieved its aim of buying its own headquarters for the first time in its history.

The Holme Valley team raised the cash to buy a former fire station as its base in the West Yorkshire town of Marsden near Huddersfield.

The deal has been completed as the volunteer rescuers prepare to celebrate the team’s 50th anniversary.

The team formerly leased a small part of the building, but when plans were announced to close the fire station due to cutbacks, they began negotiations with the fire authority to buy the whole building outright.

A deal was struck allowing a deposit to be paid in June 2013, and permitting the team to take up residence in the full building immediately when the fire service departed.

The agreement then allowed the remainder of the balance to be paid within two years, sparking a major fundraising effort by the team.

By mid-December 2014, the target was met and the building officially transferred into the hands of the mountain rescue team.

The former fire station has been altered internally to the team’s requirements, providing facilities such as a control room for planning managing incidents, gear storage facilities, a drying room, a kitchen, toilets and a training room with audio-visual facilities, as well as dedicated vehicle bays.

Although primarily concerned with upland and rural areas, the team’s operational boundary covers the southern half of West Yorkshire, an area of over 1,000 sq km, including diverse geography ranging in altitude from 7m to 580m above sea level.

The team is also called in for searches closer to the area’s metropolitan centres of Leeds, Huddersfield, Wakefield, Dewsbury Pontefract and Castleford, providing assistance and expertise to West Yorkshire Police.

Owen Phillips, an assistant leader of the Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team said: “As the team’s role has developed over the years, we have acquired more and more specialist rescue equipment, and having a dedicated building with facilities to store and maintain this equipment is vital.

The building has space for the team's vehicles

“We also garage and maintain two emergency vehicles which are kept in a state of constant readiness and require extensive facilities to train our members and keep everyone up to speed with the technicalities of rescue, casualty care and the use of specialist equipment and medical supplies.

“The former fire station building at Marsden is perfectly suited to the job, having good road access close to the moors, space for training, dedicated vehicle bays and plenty of space for kit storage.”

This year marks 50 years since the team was founded, following a tragic incident in which two Scouts sadly lost their lives while taking part in the Four Inns challenge hike on the moors.

The team expressed its gratitude to the generosity of the public and local companies and organisations for their donations and help with fundraising, but said it is conscious of the new responsibility of maintaining a building.

Mr Phillips said: “Obviously it’s fantastic news that we’ve finally met our target and have given the team a new home for years to come, but in terms of fundraising we’re not out of the woods yet.

“Now we have to maintain a building on top of the team’s normal day-to-day running costs, so it’s vital we keep up the fundraising effort.

“Insurance costs, increased utility bills and the maintenance and security of the building now need to be added to the costs of maintaining and replacing equipment, upkeep of vehicles and the other costs we need to meet to keep the team running.

“We work on an annual budget of £20,000, and the team receives no official funding from Government. All of this money has to be raised by the hard work of our own members, and the generosity of the public and other organisations who recognise our cause.”

The Holme Valley Mountain Rescue Team will host an official opening event for the new headquarters building in April.

It will also be arranging various fundraising events including a ceilidh in March and a new mountain biking event in July, together with the annual Seven Summits Challenge, an indoor sponsored climbing event also in March, and the Rescue Ramble challenge walk, a fixture in September.

Members of the public are invited to participate to help raise funds for the team and details will be released on the team’s website and social media channels throughout the year.