Plan to rebuild Kinver Fire Station approved (From Stourbridge News)

Plan to rebuild Kinver Fire Station approved

3:46pm Thursday 18th October 2012 in News

PLANNING permission to rebuild Kinver Fire Station has now been granted.

The station will be rebuilt on the existing village site and will include a community room, seating for up to 20 people, a gym for use by firefighters and supervised community groups and a training area for firefighters.

The rebuild is part of a £50m private finance initiative (PFI) project which will see 11 fire stations across the county reconstructed.

Station manager Bob Preston said: “The existing station, built in1957, is looking very tired now and is proving costly to maintain.

“It was also built when we were purely a reactive service just dealing with incidents and so it wasn’t designed for the pro-active service we are today, dealing with the community.

“The firefighters have been actively involved in the design of the new station and are looking forward to having new community and training facilities.”

PFI project manager, Norma Putman, added: “We are delighted planning permission has been granted for the new station and we look forward to giving the residents of Kinver and surrounding areas a community fire station they can be proud of.”

Contractor Blue3 will be responsible for the design, construction and ongoing maintenance of the building.

Building work is expected to start in spring 2013 and all new stations across the county should be complete by the end of 2015.

Fire service bosses will confirm building schedules for each station in spring 2013.