Opened in December 2005 Washington Fire Station is a new PFI funded Community Fire Station located in the Glover area of Washington.  The station replaces the original Washington Fire Station that was built to cover a void in fire cover left when Washington New Town was being developed in the late 1960’s. It covers several Local Council Wards namely; Washington Central, Washington South, Washington West, Washington North/Houghton and Washington East/Gateshead.

 

The station has two fire appliances and is staffed by 48 full time fire-fighters and 4 support staff.  The station also has full Community Safety facilities, including 60 seat lecture room, and will be staffed by a dedicated Community Safety Team.  In addition the new station houses two North East Ambulance Service appliances with the Ambulance Service sharing the station facilities. The new facility will be accessible to all our community.

 

The staff are the main asset and, in addition to responding to emergencies, undertake a range of Community Safety (CS) activities that are primarily aimed at preventing fires and deaths and injuries in fires.

The geographical area served by Washington Fire Station varies greatly from former mining community residential villages to large 1960’s built private and council estates, and numerous light and heavy industrial factories of varying sizes. It also includes the largest vehicle manufacturing plant in England, namely NISSAN, with its associated satellitte industries.

 

The population, based on the 2001 Census, is 67,291 persons who are predominantly from Anglo-Saxon background (98%) with a relatively small ethnic group (2%). There are 27,725 dwellings within the Station area with approximately: -

 

 

Single parent families occupy 8.4% of dwelling, with 12.1% single pensioner households.

 

Levels of unemployment across this area vary from 9.6% for males and 5.6% for females. These figures reflect the wide variety of socio-economic groups residing within individual neighbourhoods, which can be linked to the risk of dwelling fires occurring within the area. This is illustrated in the above map of the station area (the red indicates areas where the risk of having a dwelling fire is well above average, orange is above average, yellow is average, blue is below average and green is well below average).

 

There is a great deal of new development being undertaken in the Washington area, with older estates such as Blackfell and Striding Edge being demolished and replaced by new housing, and a massive turn around in industrial units as companies move on and new companies relocate. This unfortunately means that at any one time there are a number of vacant industrial units that if not secured satisfactorily, invariably mean that they have the potential to be set on fire.

 

If you wish to know more about the specific fire service issues in your area and how we intend to address these, details have been included in our Station Plan.