Honiton Fire Station should stay where it is

Fire Brigades Union rep speaks out.

Joanna Bull’s great idea to relocate Honiton fire station is misguided and shows a complete lack of knowledge of her local fire service.

Honiton’s fire station is crewed by retained firefighters, local people from the community who are trained to the same standards as whole-time fire fighters at stations such as Exmouth or Exeter. They live and work in the Honiton area and when they receive a fire call they are summoned to the station via a pager and then drive or if close enough run to the station to crew the fire appliances. Moving the station further out of town to Heathpark would mean the fire fighters would have further to travel to get to the station and once the fire appliances are mobile, more traffic to negotiate coming back into town. This would increase response times drastically, putting the lives of Honiton and surrounding village residents at greater risk.

Fire stations in the Devon & Somerset Fire & Rescue service are Community Fire Stations and have rooms available for community use, they offer disabled access and toilets, have tea and coffee making facilities and PCs with projectors for lectures/presentations.

Honiton’s fire station is very much part of the community and should remain where it is.

Wayne Broom

Fire Brigades Union

Honiton Branch

Millers Way

Honiton