As Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service approaches the end of its first year of existence, there has been much to celebrate.
The new organisation – a combination of the former Dorset Fire & Rescue Service and Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service – came into being on 1 April 2016, following over two years of detailed preparation work.
In that time, a new headquarters in Salisbury, within Wiltshire Council’s Five Rivers Health & Wellbeing Centre, has been established, and new ways of working have been adopted to help staff manage the larger Service area.
Some of the key statistics from the first six months of the new Service are as follows:
· Delivery of 6,254 free Safe and Well visits, taking home fire safety advice to people’s homes and fitting free smoke detectors where appropriate.
· Fire safety education delivered to 8,982 Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 students.
· Continued support of the SafeWise centres in Bournemouth and Weymouth, contributing to the education of 6,349 young people.
· A site secured at Wroughton for the development of a new SafeWise centre to serve the communities of Swindon and Wiltshire – due to open in 2018.
· Seven Salamander courses held in Wiltshire and Swindon to deliver positive outcomes for young people, including clients of JobCentre Plus.
· Roll-out of the Alzheimer’s Society ‘Dementia Friends’ training to operational crews.
· Delivery of 43 Safe Drive Stay Alive roadshows for schools and colleges, impacting on around 10,500 students.
· Contact with over 1,000 businesses to educate them on their fire safety responsibilities.
· Purchase of four replacement fire engines for this financial year, and an order placed for two replacement aerial ladder platforms.
· A commitment made to remove a legacy difference and upgrade fire helmets for all Wiltshire operational staff, to align with colleagues in Dorset.
Chief Fire Officer Ben Ansell said: “Given the significant amount of change that the Service has been through over the last year, I am incredibly proud of how our staff have continued to deliver on our strategic priorities. The days are long gone when the fire and rescue service was only about responding with blue lights and sirens to emergencies; we now have such a key role to play in preventing fires and other incidents from happening in the first place, and really good results are already being achieved. We will now build on this good performance to ensure that we continue to make Wiltshire and Dorset better, healthier and safer places to live.”
Cllr Rebecca Knox, Chairman of Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Authority, added: “When we set out on the road to combination, one of our priorities was to become a stronger partner for our local authorities, the police, the ambulance service and colleagues in health. What we are seeing even before our first year is complete is a high level of joint working and some excellent partnership projects that are benefiting the communities that we serve.
“Another priority of combination was to create a more financially secure environment for providing our prevention, protection and emergency response services to the communities of Bournemouth, Dorset, Poole, Swindon and Wiltshire. Significant savings have been made, as we intended, but we have not held back on investment where it has been needed, as proven by the purchasing of new fire helmets and operational vehicles and an increase in our prevention activities. We are passionate about changing and saving lives and I am confident that we will continue to go from strength to strength in the coming years.”
