The building of ten brand new community fire stations in Staffordshire is today another step closer!
The Fire and Rescue Authority have agreed that Fire Support is the company they would like to appoint to take forward the
£46million private finance initiative project. The project will see seven fire stations rebuilt as well as the building of
an additional three stations in areas where the Fire Authority has determined there is a need for additional resources.
All stations have been designed with a community facility and state of the art operational facilities. Stations crewed around
the clock are also to include fitness facilities that can be used by supervised groups. Community groups will be able to use
the facilities and the newly designed stations will also allow for more community safety activities to take place, such as
Student Firefighter courses.
Chief Fire Officer/Chief Executive Peter Dartford says, “We are leading the way in the UK Fire and Rescue Service with these
purpose built community embracing fire stations. Our current fire stations were built at a time when we were almost solely
a reactive service just responding to emergencies, they were certainly not built for the pro-active service we are today or
the Service we are going to be in the future – sitting at the heart of the community.
“This is a really exciting time for the Service and we look forward to engaging with the public so that they can help us shape
the use of the community facilities. These buildings don’t look like our traditional fire stations and this is because they
have been specifically designed to be inviting to the public and they allow for the integration of the community within the
fire station.”
Steve Knight, Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s Programme Director states “We started off with 18 bidders for this contract
and through a detailed evaluation process we managed to whittle this down to just two bidders four months ago. Personnel from
all levels and sections of the Service have been involved in the evaluation and it was a close contest with both companies,
Kajima and Fire Support, producing excellent submissions.”
Bruce Dickinson representing Fire Support says, "It has been a challenging but exciting eighteen months working in conjunction
with Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Fire and Rescue Authority to develop our proposals for new look community fire stations.
The appointment as the Preferred Bidder is fantastic news for Fire Support and I would like to take this opportunity to thank
all involved for their hard work and tenacity in achieving this result. Fire Support is looking forward to working in partnership
with the Authority to deliver its new vision for the fire service by now turning these buildings into reality."
The contract will be officially signed in June next year with building commencing the following month. All new stations are
expected to be built by Summer 2011.
The stations will be operational by the following dates:
Rising Brook, Stafford – June 2010
Sandyford, Stoke on Trent – July 2010
Tamworth, Belgrave - August 2010
Cannock – October 2010
Uttoxeter – December 2010
Newcastle – April 2011
Burslem – May 2011
Hanley – June 2011
Kidsgrove – June 2011
Tamworth – July 2011
The stations to be located in new areas are Tamworth, at a location in Belgrave (the existing Tamworth station will also be
rebuilt on its current site), Sandyford which is located between Kidsgrove and Burslem in North Staffordshire and Rising Brook
which will complement the existing station on Beaconside, Stafford.
Here is a computer generated walk through video of a new station:
The video below is a Macromedia Flash Video, if you cannot see the file please download Flash from here
Please note the video does not autostart you will have to click on the play button.
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