Chapeltown: Five emergency crews attend after children seen playing on frozen pond in Sheffield

Emergency services were called after a motorist on the M1 spotted youngsters on ice off Smithy Wood Road in Chapeltown on Sunday afternoon.

A South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said officers found a group playing nearby, established it was them who had been seen and gave them friendly advice about the dangers.

In December, four young boys aged six, eight, 10 and 11, drowned after falling into an icy lake at Babbs Mill Park, Kingshurst, Solihull.

The spokesman added: “Sadly, our crews have just come away from an incident in Chapeltown where a group of young people were spotted playing on a frozen body of water. We've said it before and we'll say it again - please stay off the ice! You never know how thick it might be, and if you fall in, you could get into serious difficulty!"

The response to a possible water rescue was to send appliances and paramedics, he added. “This was a waste of resources that could have been needed for a genuine emergency.”

But the caller did the right thing in reporting it, he added.

In Solihull on December 11, brothers Finlay and Samuel Butler, their cousin Thomas Stewart and Jack Johnson were pulled from the freezing lake but died in hospital.

An inquest confirmed the boys died from drowning. They were in the water more than 20 minutes after the first 999 calls, Birmingham and Solihull Coroner's Court heard.