The CCTV blind spots that could hold key to Nicola Bulley’s disappearance

Police admitted that there is still a ‘possibility’ Nicola Bulley left the area by a path not covered by CCTV

A number of CCTV blindspots have been identified as the hunt for missing mother-of-two Nicola Bulley continues.

Ms Bulley, 45, vanished while walking her springer spaniel dog Willow alongside the River Wyre in St Michael’s on Wyre on 27 January.

She had dropped off her daughters, aged six and nine, at school and was on her usual walk when she disappeared, her phone was found on a bench overlooking the river.

It has been two weeks since Nicola Bulley vanished (PA)

Police launched a search operation along the riverbank that has now extended to the sea, and have been working on the hypothesis Ms Bulley fell into the river.

Multiple searches of an area near the bench, the suspected “entry point” of where Ms Bulley could have gone into the water, have been conducted by police divers and underwater search experts.

After a three-day search earlier this week by a forensics expert, no trace of Ms Bulley was found.

Police admitted there is still a “possibility“ she left the area by a path not covered by CCTV cameras, which runs to Garstang Road. Officers are now trying to trace dashcam footage from 700 drivers who passed along the route at the time she disappeared, around 9.20am on 27 January.

A map showing the areas searced so far (Datawrapper/The Independent)

There are two other exits from the area, other than the river, and one is covered by CCTV.

But friends of Ms Bulley say the camera close to a mobile home site called Rowanwater, near her last known sighting, isn’t working.

The other blind spot is the path near the Wyreside Farm Caravan Park through to the A586, but again it is believed the camera there does not work either.

Ms Bulley was out walking her dog Willow when she vanished (PA)

“There’s CCTV at the back of the caravan park,” friend Tilly Ann wrote on Facebook. “The only camera that isn’t working is the one that would have seen everything.”

The focus of the police search has now shifted from where Ms Bulley vanished to further downstream, towards where the River Wyre empties into the Irish Sea at Morecambe Bay.

A dinghy with two officers on board could be seen on the water on Thursday, while an orange rescue boat was also spotted appearing to do sweeps of the river off Knott End-on-Sea, at the mouth of the bay, around 10 miles from where the mortgage adviser’s phone was found on a bench, still connected to a work call.

Meanwhile, friends of the missing mother-of-two gathered for another roadside appeal two weeks on from her disappearance.

Members of the local community have been standing by the road in the Lancashire village of St Michael’s on Wyre with banners and placards featuring her photograph, in a plea to “bring Nikki home”.