Police rescue stranded motorists

Cheshire Police attended nine vehicles after they became stranded in the snow over the weekend.

Twenty-two people, including eight children under the age of 10, were rescued from their cars after they became stuck on the back roads of the White Peak area.

It took officers three hours to rescue the vehicles – which had travelled from as far as Sale, Stockport and Salford despite being advised not to venture out of their areas under the Tier 4 restrictions.

A Cheshire Police Rural Crime Team spokesman said: “The team this afternoon have been involved in a 3 hour rescue of a number of families stuck in their vehicles.

“Initially the call was for one family with a young child stuck in their vehicle. They’d travelled from Manchester into the White Peak area of Cheshire.

“As we arrived in the area, we set up an RV point at a local farm (Massive thank you to the gent their who allowed us to use his yard). Then myself, PC Kaminski and PC Shields set off on foot to walk to the location.

“What we found were 9 vehicles stranded with 22 people spread amongst them (and one dog) 8 of them children all under the age of 10 with the youngest being 2 years old.

“The snow had well and truly caught them all out on the back roads, and it soon became apparent that all except one car was from out of Cheshire. We had people from Sale, Stockport and Salford with the closest being Congleton.

“We were 3 miles from the nearest village, and the light was fading on us quickly. It was decided to get everyone out of their cars and so began a 1 mile walk in the snow to the farm we had set up as an RV. Once there, we ferried them off the hill to two police vans, who took them off into Macclesfield.

“Everyone is off the hill, safe and well. Massive thank you to all involved from the RCT, Macclesfield Police, both Community Team and Response and the Control room who kept the incident running for us.

“It’s TIER 4 for a reason. Sadly these people have put all of us at risk today. Please don’t venture out into the snow or any high ground (if you’re not prepared for snow) and keep local.”