Police helicopter

Does anyone know what the police helicopter is looking for over forest hill

It was circling for about 30 minutes over our house. Quite unnerving

Someone went in to Sainsbury without a mask on. The man is still on the loose.

Yes it was circling over our road (Kilgour) as well for what seemed about 30 mins. Also sounded very low flying as it was extremely noisy.

I’ve seen on another forum mention of an all night rave on Addington Grove as well as low flying helicopters but nobody seems to have linked the two! Addington Grove is just off Sydenham Road near to Mayow Road so sounds likely that was what it was as the helicopters I saw around 1130pm and again after 1am seemed to be turning over Forest Hill and then going towards that area.

When I used to live next to a small wood near to a maximum security prison every Weds at 8pm the police helicopter used to hover over the woods for training (or we had really regular prisoner escapes!). I am beginning to think that the local police might be using FH for the same reason. There have been quite a few hovering police helicopters over the last couple of months - but without the sirens you would generally expect in a police chase

It always seems to happen at the same time…around 10-11pm. There was a period where it happened quite regularly (at least every week) and always at this time.

Could be worth taking a note of the times and then we can make an official complaint if we believe they are used training - they shouldn’t be doing that in one area

He is back now. Really does seem like training

The website’s not particularly helpful…

https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Make-a-report-or-complaint/Use-of-UK-airspace/

I’ve found the CAA to be pretty toothless when enforcing powers they already have - like over commercial airlines.
This seems to include their website https://www.caa.co.uk/Data-and-analysis/Airspace-and-environment/Airspace/London-helicopter-operations/ - police helicopters don’t have to obey the rules - but we won’t tell you what they do have to!

Tbh if there’s an emergency I have no issue with the helicopter. However when they insist on hovering over the same area late at night for practice it’s a bit annoying…

Unless FH has suddenly become a hot spot for crime which needs a helicopter (which is basically car chases) I doubt it is crime.

I think the heli has a bit more utility than just that:

That said, there does seem to be a bit of racing going on around FH at night (e.g. the Speeding topic).

Not sure where it says in there. That is a national tweet - and on average only 4 searches per police force in a week. That means Forest Hill got all of London’s allotment for the week! Admittedly London Met probably gets a bit more than its fair share