Dartmoor Search and Rescue Team, Ashburton, launched two new vehicles on Saturday, replacing those that were nearly 20 years old. The manager of the Cromwell Arms, Bovey Tracey, Nick Evans, suggested to the St Austell Brewery Charitable Trust that it might like to donate towards the team. Mr Evans has been helping to raise money for the team over the years by fundraising at his pub. Martyn Evans, chairman of the team, said: 'We had planned to spend £10,000 on replacing one vehicle and purchasing and fitting out a new one, but thanks to the generosity of the St Austell Bewery Charitable Trust, who donated £6,000 we have been able to purchase a vehicle to fit out as a mobile incident unit and another as a water vehicle. 'A one-off donation of this size from the St Austell Brewery is an amazing donation.' Mark Bishop, of St Austell Brewery, said: 'The St Austell Brewery Charitable Trust raises money through its pubs, golf days and individual staff members organising events. 'It is great for everyone to see where the money goes. I didn't realise how much they would be able to refurbish the vehicles.' The charitable trust has donated more £75,000 during the last two years. Its biggest donation, of £10,000, was to the Boscastle appeal, but this donation to the search and rescue team was the second largest. The team faces an even bigger fundraising challenge over the next couple of years as it attempts to refurbish a new storage and training facility in Ashburton. In 30 years, it has had to rely on the generosity of others for storing equipment. It is currently being accommodated for around another 18 months by the monks at Buckfast Abbey in one of their currently unwanted Dutch barns. For the last two years they have had a plan to create their own building at a farm property leased to them for 21 years at a peppercorn rent by a generous local company. Unfortunately, due to the lack of funding available to groups such as theirs, the projected start date is constantly being reassessed. At this time they cannot visualise the scheme coming to fruition anytime soon They envisage the cost of the project to be in two parts. There will be an initial £20,000 for making a section of the building sound and secure primarily for vehicle storage. Thereafter a further £80,000 to £100,000 will be needed to make the second part of the building not only sound and secure but also to build within it a bunkhouse, kitchen and shower facilities, training room, workshop, drying room and storage facilities for the more fragile parts of their equipment. The team can now put three purpose-designed vehicles and up to 48 trained personal in the field within an hour, 365 days a year. Together with their three sister rescue teams around Dartmoor they can deploy up to 150 trained search personnel. Although employed solely by the police, they are all unpaid volunteers. Those in the Ashburton team train and deploy hasty teams, canoe teams, riverbank trained search teams, mountain bike search team, foot teams and a number of amateur radio operators. In order to maintain this level of expertise the team spends on average £8,000 per year. This does not include specialist training costs such as re-training water technicians, who in turn train the rest of the team in riverbank safety. Team leader training and search manager training have to be done in north Wales. It therefore involves members spending time away from work and paying their own travelling expenses. The team trains every week and at least two full weekends per year, as well as other odd days and nights.