Built in 1997, and opened in October 1997, Rainton Bridge Fire Station is located on Mercantile Road in the centre of the Houghton-le-Spring area of the City of Sunderland. It was built to cover a void in fire cover left when Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service closed Fencehouses Fire Station. It covers several Local Council Wards namely; Houghton, Hetton and Copt Hill.

 

The station has one fire appliance and is staffed by 28 full time fire-fighters and 4 support staff. 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 station includes an extension not shown in the photograph that now houses a North East Ambulance Service appliance with the Ambulance Service sharing the station facilities. This has benefits for joint service training and liaison.

The geographical area served by Rainton Bridge Fire Station varies greatly from former mining community residential villages to large pre/post war council estates, and light and heavy industrial. It also includes a new business development site adjacent to the station, which when complete in two years will materially alter the fire risk profile in the station area.

 

The population, based on the 2001 Census, is 37,706 persons who are predominantly from Anglo-Saxon background (98%) with a relatively small ethnic group (2%). There are 16,379 dwellings within the Station area with approximately: -

 

Single parent families occupy 6.7% of dwelling, with 15.9% single pensioner households.

Levels of unemployment across this area vary from 11.2% for males and 6.6% 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).

 

During 2005/09, the Sunderland Housing Group will be refurbishing 1500 homes in the Rainton Bridge station catchment area. This refurbishment will include the fitting of hard-wired smoke alarms, which should, when the refurbishment is completed reduce the risk from fire in the estates currently in the high-risk areas.

 

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.