Plans submitted for new fire station near Boston as council looks to upgrade facilities
Plans have been submitted to build a new fire station in a village near Boston.
Lincolnshire County Council is keen to improve its fire and rescue facilities in Leverton.
The current station, it says, is ‘an older building on a small site which falls behind the standard of facilities at many other fire stations’.
In particular, it says, the station lacks sufficient training and welfare facilities, and the site causes manoeuvrability difficulties for fire appliances, with a lack of parking for additional response vehicles.
Coun Lindsey Cawrey, executive councillor for Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, said: “The council is committed to improving facilities at Leverton and are now looking at options to do this.
“We are looking at what could be done on the current site but the station doesn’t have enough space for training and decontaminating fire kit and the welfare facilities aren’t up to the standards of our other stations.
“There are also access issues with the crew having to reverse the fire appliance off the busy A52 into the appliance bay, which causes disruption and the risk of a collision.
“Our firefighters have to travel to other stations at Boston or Skegness to carry out training and this can reduce their availability and limit their training time. We know that making improvements would not only make things better for the crew, but also the local community.”
The current fire station is in Main Road, near Lacey’s Lane.
Under the submitted plans, a new on-call fire station would be built further along Main Road towards Skegness, past Jenkins’ Lane, on a plot currently left as grass/scrubland.
It would be a single-storey, two-bay facility, with associated vehicle access, parking, drill area and training tower.
Coun Richard Butroid, executive councillor for property services, said: “Our preferred option is to construct a new station elsewhere in the village as there are limitations to what we can do on the current site.
“Although it’s possible to modernise some of the facilities at the station, the site is small and this wouldn’t get over the problems of a lack of training facilities and the manoeuvrability difficulties that our fire crew experience.
“We’re at the initial stages of this work, and are putting an initial planning application forward for a new station so we can see what is achievable and how much it would cost.
“If we do go ahead we’ll need to ensure best value for money, as well as enhancing the emergency response to the public.”
A public information event will be held over the plans at Leverton Fire Station tomorrow (Wednesday, September 25), from 3-6.30pm.