You know i'm actually only now realising why everyones been saying that about the last area. Turns out I think I accidentally made the encounter rate 50% while changing the base escape chance in the area to 50%. Every other area in the game is set to 30. I do think I could have also put a few more lights around the items to make them more worth picking up.
In a way I expected the chase scenes to be quite a surprise for players, that's why there's always a save point right before them most of the time, so if you get caught out the first time you won't lose anything.
Thanks for the feedback.