Hampshire & Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service has unveiled its future plans for East Cowes Fire Station, with the existing building set to be demolished next week.
Capital funding has been agreed upon to support the development of a brand-new fire station, which will include the service’s Isle of Wight workshops.
The HIWFRS Island Fleet and Equipment Maintenance Centre is currently based in Newport and needs an upgrade. A new purpose-built facility at East Cowes will offer a much-improved standard of facilities that will enable the service’s modern vehicles to be suitably maintained.
Furthermore, the move from Newport to East Cowes will free up bay space at Newport for additional resources.
The fire service is now working on plans for the site and is in conversations with the local authority with the aim of submitting a planning application by early next year. But that means retained firefighters won’t be returning to the town for at least another 6 months… unless a temporary home can be found, with efforts failing to date.
East Cowes Fire Station was closed back in May due to health and safety risks with the building suffering from significant subsidence.
In the meantime, demolition work will be starting on the East Cowes site on Monday (30th September).
Councillor Karen Lucioni, Fire Authority Member for the Isle of Wight, has said:
“The decision of the fire authority is a clear commitment to the people of East Cowes. This investment will not only see the return of operational fire crews to the town but will also make best use of the site with the addition of much-needed vehicle maintenance facilities.
“Over the last two years, four brand new light fleet vehicles and two brand new fire appliances have been allocated to the Island and we need to ensure we have the capability to service and repair these and our other vehicles”.
Jeff Walls, Group Manager for the Isle of Wight, has said:
“I am pleased that we are on the road to being able to welcome back our on-call crew to an operational base in East Cowes. Our on-call firefighters are people whose sense of community has led them to serve and help protect people in their town and across the Island and we truly value the time they give and the contribution they make to keep people safe.”
Island Echo understands that East Cowes will lose its Incident Support Unit and will become a 1-pump station. Elsewhere on the Island, a brand new Incident Command Unit is set to arrive at Newport, as is a second-hand Animal Rescue Unit from Lyndhurst. The Isle of Wight is also expected to soon have an Environmental Protection Unit.
With only one road in and one road out, I wouldn’t think East Cowes was best suited for this purpose, even if only on a temporary basis. One ferry comes in or an incident on the road and it becomes jammed.
So Cowes is getting a new fire station, great. But what is happening to the Bembridge fire station. I served there for a few years and it served the area well and Bembridge is a large area and waiting for Sandown or Ryde to attend could cost lives, but no one seems to want to know. I cannot understand why the people of Bembridge are not up in arms about their fire station going. What about SOS, Save our Station? I believe that there was going to be a meeting about apathy in Bembridge, but no one turned up?