Why is a police helicopter flying above the area where I live everyday and night?

[frenchlavenderfeild]

I live in a residential area on the outskirts of a mid sized town. The area is a council estate sitting sandwiched in between two private estates all small, very quiet and bordering green belt.

I appreciate that sometimes police will be out in response to a particular crime or situation but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Instead the helicopters just circles around and around for a lengthy period of time then flies off.

It can be once or a few times a day. It often will circle round for a while on Friday or Saturday evenings sometimes with its search light on which you can see passing through the garden. I thought perhaps they were training pilots but surely they don’t train that many as they’ve been coming here for years now but seem to be getting ever more frequent!

We’re not near any big roads and where they circle is more towards the houses and fields than the roads.

Any ideas as to why police helicopters are flying round a quiet residential area on a daily basis?

Are you certain they are police helicopters?

Just to add that at weekends it can be flying quite low with search light on after 11pm at night. There never appears to be any police on the ground and no crimes reported so they seem to be doing just for the sake of it and for practice?

Yes it’s definitely a police helicopter.

It costs a lot of money to send an air support unit up. They are not doing it for a jolly.

@frenchlavenderfeild

Its definitely a police helicopter especially if you live in rough/problematic area.😕

I do assume it’s for a reason but it’s very hard to figure out why? It’s been going on for at least 4 years now and getting more frequent but for no apparent reason. I did consider thermal imaging of cannabis farms but surely they would have acted by now and not still sending out helicopters twice a day to take images of the same house for 4 years?

@thosetalesofunexpected It’s not really a rough area, there is a council estate where most people own these days and it’s very quiet. The other two housing areas are private. Very little trouble anywhere locally.

I have binoculars so checked the helicopter out and it’s a police helicopter same one every time as far as I can tell. I can here it outside now it’s come back again even though it was only here less than an hour ago.

You've got bad people in the vicinity. They're looking for someone, something - probably drug dealers or covid-deniers gathering if it's in the same area every time - or they might just be reminding them to move on. Where I am now, the last circling helicopter was looking for a vulnerable elderly man who had escaped from his care home. Where I live, we get circled quite often because it's a maze of alleys and lanes, no vehicle access, and lots of gardens/garages to hide in.

The police use helicopters for traffic monitoring, particularly when there's a problem and there's been lots of heavy rain/bad weather. Plus, your perception of what they are looking at or following may not be correct.

We get the air ambulance and mountain rescue helicopters near us quite regularly - not always for ill-equipped idiots out when they shouldn't be. There are fewer commercial aircraft flying over as well due to the pandemic which makes lower flying helicopters and light aircraft stand out more.

Hmm any one of these reasons might make sense occasionally but not every day or multiple times a day?

My best guess is that where we are is at the edge of their jurisdiction and they just circle us at the end of their usual patrol (not sure why) before flying back. I feel like the attention we get is more due to lack of incidents rather than due to them.

@frenchlavenderfeild

Op
A lot of towns,even posher respectful ones have been having a lot of a spate of country lines drugs runners issues recently,they move into quieter,leafy green,surburb areas,as they are less likely to acctract the attentions of the police.
Such as in the big Cities, also in big cities too,much competition(over saturated illegal drugs market is) with drug dealers in areas to deal with drugs.
Its a issue most places now in uk.

Drug dealers country lines ones know teenagers/young people from posh respectful country/town areas in a lot/all of these places in uk,have a lot of high income,
So there know there is a potential rich pickings,knowing if these kinds of people can be taking advantage by getting hooked into illegal drugs, it would less likely to acctract the police because these young people are wealthy allready.
For a drug dealer getting a rich kids dedicated is like winning the national uk lottery.

I should point out I’m not especially annoyed by the helicopters although I know some neighbours are, I’m just curious or perhaps nosy!

@thosetalesofunexpected I’m not in England but yes fair enough drugs are everywhere so it could be drugs related.

It's county lines, not country lines.

I've lived in some places where the police helicopters would be there almost every night for months on end. I've lived in others where you never see or hear them. I always assumed it meant that some criminal activity was going on and they were looking for someone. If you live in a rough area then maybe that sort of thing is happening very frequently?

It’s really not a rough area at all. I guess short of flagging them down and asking them I’ll never know. I’ll perhaps ask on a police forum.

We had this when living in a previous house and turned out to be drug runners and ‘hit’ houses. There was apparently a cannabis farm in one house. We never suspected.

Hot houses not hit!

@SheeshazAZ09 how long did it go on for as this has been going on for years now, surely they would have taken action by now?

Is it over an area of woodland or similar? Lots of trees? Or possibly near water/quarry?

It costs a lot of money to send NPAS up so it isn't done lightly.

Sadly we are having to do it a lot lately due to huge decline in people's mental health we are getting suicidal people going off each night, so high risk missing people.

In my first few years these jobs would be quite rare. Now they are every single shift.

Maybe its part of recording another episode of Police Interceptors!! They always seem to have the helicopter out on that show

I’m not in England

Which country are you in?

@Stationfork there is a small wooded area but it’s very small and busy with dog walkers and kids playing. I walk there everyday myself.

I’ve not heard of suicides in that area but of course I might not hear about it. We have been having the helicopters here daily for years now so it’s not just since lockdown and the pandemic.

Do some police helicopters do a very specific route everyday as a routine or do they only go out for specific reasons?

[quote frenchlavenderfeild]@thosetalesofunexpected It’s not really a rough area, there is a council estate where most people own these days and it’s very quiet. The other two housing areas are private. Very little trouble anywhere locally.[/quote]
Council tenants aren’t automatic trouble causers you know . It’s been known that (whispers) owner occupiers aren’t always law abiding, shocking I know.