Fire Authority Chair Tom Wright officially opened the new North Tyneside East Community Fire Station in North Shields today (Thursday, 22 July 2010).
The new North Tyneside East Community Fire Station is equipped with two appliances and an incident response unit crewed by frontline firefighters. It is home to the Station Manager and the North Tyneside District Manager, along with community safety and support staff. It replaces the old station, built in 1959, which was housed on the same site.
As well as providing emergency fire and rescue cover, it also has an extensive community safety facility where members of the public can ‘drop in’ for free fire safety advice from experienced staff. The centre will have multi-media facilities and meeting rooms which will be available for the public to book.
It is one of five new community fire stations to be built as part of a North East Fire and Rescue Authorities (NEFRA) Private Finance Initiative (PFI) which includes new community fire stations for County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service and Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service.
The project has received significant funding from Communities and Local Government who contributed £42 million in PFI credits to assist in the project.
Chief Fire Officer, Iain Bathgate, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service said: "We are committed to providing the community with the highest standards of safety and our new community fire stations like the one here in North Tyneside are a major step forward in achieving our vision of a safer community, ensuring our services are second to none.
"We are very proud of the services we offer and are continuously striving to improve our value to the public, both in terms of responding to incidents and increasingly in reducing the risk to the community by preventing incidents from happening in the first place. The community facilities will allow us to get our message across and also provide an excellent focal point for local people to come and receive life saving advice.”
Fire Authority Chair Tom Wright added: “I am honoured and delighted to perform the opening ceremony for the new North Tyneside East Community Fire Station. The provision of this new facility will not only better serve the community in terms of firefighting and prevention, but is specifically designed to provide a real physical link with the local community who I know will enthusiastically welcome and embrace it."
Work continues on a new training facility and four-storey training tower on the same site which is expected to be complete in early 2011.
John Laing Investments provided 80% of the equity for the NEFRA project and Shepherd Construction provided the remaining 20%, as well as building the five new stations which were part of the NEFRA project.
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