This is the dramatic moment armed police swarmed a car in High Wycombe, triggering a lockdown of a gym and nursery.

Officers surrounded a grey vehicle at Handy Cross roundabout yesterday afternoon after receiving reports of a weapon inside the car. The incident happened at the top of Marlow Hill.

Local businesses said it locked its doors and kept youngsters inside after around 20 armed officers and up to 10 police vehicles descended on the site on Monday afternoon (July 6).

Little Gym told the Free Press that they put the building on lockdown as a result of the heavy police presence (Image: NQ)

Witnesses said officers blocked the road and trained firearms on a vehicle parked outside The Little Gym and a linked nursery, with video footage showing a man in a high‑visibility vest being ordered out of the car and told to walk away with his hands on his head.

Staff at The Little Gym described the incident as unlike anything they had seen before.

One member of staff, who has worked at the gym for five years, said: “It’s not common at all. I’ve worked here for five years and there’s never been anything like that around here.”

They said classes continued “as much as we could” while doors were locked and children kept away from the scene.

“We obviously locked down all the front doors, but in terms of our classes, we just kept them running and kept it as calm as possible,” they said.

“We did cancel the next class for safety purposes because we were aware there was a lot going on. We didn’t want the children seeing what was going on outside, so we gave families as much notice as possible not to come.”

Parents and children already inside were reassured, although staff said they had little information at the time about what was happening.

“We just kept them reassured and told them what was going on as best as we could,” the staff member added.

“The police didn’t tell us what was going on. We only found out about it from a post online, so we had no clue. We just saw police really.”

Lots of officers were seen on the road just off Marlow Hill (Image: NQ)

Armed police were at the scene (Image: Supplied)

The gym stayed locked until officers left the area.

“We waited until it was completely safe for people to leave or come back into the building,” they said.

A worker at High Wycombe Leisure Centre, which also sits on the Handy Cross site, said they saw officers surrounding a car and took it upon themselves to redirect traffic.

“All I saw was a bunch of police blocked off with guns being held at a car,” they said.

“There were four or five police cars, and all the roads were blocked off. I took it on myself to redirect traffic because people were still trying to get through.”

They added that while police are often called to the busy hub, incidents involving armed officers are “nothing to that extent”.

A man was seen leaving a car in a high-vis vest (Image: Supplied)

The police presence lasted for several hours (Image: Supplied)

The incident is understood to have lasted for around an hour to an hour and a half before the area was fully reopened.

In a statement issued during the incident, Thames Valley Police said officers were deployed after information that a weapon was believed to be inside a vehicle.

The force said: “The vehicle was stopped outside of The Little Gym Handy Cross and the linked nursery.

“Naturally there has been a large gathering for the incident with numerous school children present and multiple people recording.

“Officers will continue to patrol the area, speak to both the nursery, the gym and sports centre, but we want to reassure you there is no wider risk to the public, and the incident is in hand.”

Police later confirmed there was no wider threat and businesses at Handy Cross have since returned to normal.