Cambo

Plans for fire station

They have said they've looked @ the bus station today when I asked them & agree its a good location however they think there big engines won't be able to turn out because they want a roadside frontage but I think that's more than achievable on union walk we need to convince HWFRS of that?… maybe we could get someone to do a drawing?

Yes they know its not perfect that's why they want you to let them know your views as they will change things before submitting…so maybe a wall of silence is better used here?

Bloody hell megilleland that's daylight robbery no wonder so many shops are empty!!

Managed to obtain a drawing of the elevations too!!

On a positive note it could play into our hands? after all if they had put in a design which was stunningly beautiful there would be nothing to say? But with this design my ammunitions dump is looking pretty stocked?!

Another word I'd use for the way it looks & thats boring!! …Not a patch on the old boys home!!!

Yes twowheelsgood appalling looking part of it looks like a shed the other part a leisure centre apparently planning told them they wanted something similar in look to the new magistrates courts building?!

Well I've been along to have a look @ the drawings & we are going to have a new fire station that looks like a leisure centre with some big doors!!! Very unattractive looking to me not iconic @ all!!! I'd like to ask cllr Lloyd-Hayes her thoughts on the drawings will it look iconic enough for you & something to be proud of??

I'm surprised gridlock doesn't happen up @ BrockingtonHC as there's plenty of holes up there?…assholes that would be!!! Fancy not knowing? it just goes to show wot the highways agency think of HC?!

Just to let folks know I have been informed that due to ill health, regrettably & apologetically cllr Mark Hubbard will be unable to attend @ the fire station tomorrow for the showing of the designs for the purposed new station.

I thought I'd just throw this in from bbc 2009 Fire HQ to be revamped not moved Plans to move Shropshire's fire service headquarters have been dropped in favour of refurbishing the existing base. The total cost of redeveloping the headquarters in St Michael's Street, Shrewsbury, is expected to cost £4m - £6m less than a move would have been. The fire service said it had already raised £2.5m for the work through grants and efficiency savings. Work on the refurbishment is expected to start later this year.

After seeing how these new modern fire stations look & if this is wot type of plans we can expect to see on show tomorrow?(nothing wrong with the designs themselves) then I'm even more convinced now (not that I ever wasn't) that the old boys home is not the location for Herefords purposed new fire station given that it is in a conservation area,it will look total out of place especially with all the other buildings running down that side of bath street? also I do not believe the look of it will enhance the area any!!

30 yrs is the expected lifespan of a fire station??? Are they mentalists??? Do these people think we in the public are a bunch of jokers or something???

Shrewsbury's got a new fire station too & it cost £3.65 million

£40million for 4 new fire stations & community centre wonder how much each new station cost? Poss £8million? How much have HWFRS got for the one they want to build on bath st??

Gloucestershire gets £40m for new fire stations Continue reading the main story Related Stories Fire services urged to co-operate Regional fire centres 'should go' The government has confirmed it will provide £40m for four new fire stations and a community centre in Gloucestershire. Gloucester fire station will be replaced with sites in Cheltenham Road East, Churchdown, and Tuffley. In Cheltenham, the Keynsham Road base will be demolished and rebuilt and a new station built at Uckington. The fire service said the stations would enable firefighters to respond to incidents more quickly. The cash had been in doubt after the government reviewed Private Finance Initiative (PFI) bids as part of the Spending Review. 'Difficult financial times' Gloucestershire County Council has now received confirmation of the funding. The life skills centre, which will be used by schoolchildren, organisations and community groups, will be based at Shepherd Road in Tuffley, Gloucester. Councillor Will Windsor-Clive, the county council's cabinet member for community safety, said: "I appreciate that some people are questioning the investment into new fire stations during these difficult financial times, but the bottom line is that they will better help us serve and protect the people of Gloucestershire and that's our priority." Construction is due to begin next month at Shepherd Road. Below pic of south gloucester fire station

South gloucester new fire station

The station was built on its current site to meet the standards of the day. However, the characteristics of the City have changed dramatically in the last 50 years and the areas where housing exists and where people are at risk has dictated a change in our strategy. As you can see from the pictures below, time has not been kind to the old City fire station and the time is ripe for some new facilities. Cheltenham Fire Station was opened on 26 April 1960, so is 48 years old and is starting to suffer from the same problems as Gloucester. There are also issues at both stations in terms of adequate space for the needs of a modern fire-fighter, housing for appliances and training facilities. In addition, there is currently little provision for community facilities, something that will be addressed at the new stations. Gloucester Fire Station is currently costing almost £45,000 per year to maintain and repair every year, while Cheltenham Fire Station is costing more than £30,000 to maintain and repair each year. The general expected lifespan for a Fire Station is 30 years so both buildings have far exceeded their natural lives.

No news from save today but they do have a big case just started in Liverpool so I'll give them another call tomorrow. You might be interested to read this from gloucester fire service Why do we need the new Fire Stations? There are two main reasons why we need the new Fire Stations: Response: The growing and changing population of Cheltenham and Gloucester means our fire stations are no longer located in the right places to best reach the communities they serve and will serve in the future. Regeneration: The existing buildings are no longer fit for purpose-they are old, out-of-date and costing a lot of money to maintain and repair. Response We need to ensure that our emergency response abilities match the risks we have identified to our communities, from fire and any other dangers, which fall within our area of responsibility. Improved building construction, building regulations, fire safety measures and legislation have removed many of the risks to life from fire which were at one time found in commercial, industrial, recreational ant other institutional premises. This leaves us free to concentrate on the places where deaths and injuries are still occurring-homes and the roads of Gloucestershire. Research has shown that if we are able to respond to any life-threatening incidents within 8-minutes, chances of survival are good. The current stations in Gloucester and Cheltenham are now struggling to meet this response time and the outcomes of our detailed research indicate a need to relocate as follows: • Gloucester-Replace the station on Eastern Avenue with two smaller stations one located towards the West of the City to deal with the ever- growing area around Quedgeley and another to the North of the City in the Elmbridge area. • Cheltenham-The current Keynsham Road site remains in a strategically well positioned and the proposal is to demolish this station and re-build on the same site. There is also a need for an additional location towards the Northwest of the town in the Uckington area. Regeneration Gloucester Fire Station was first opened on May 17 1956, so it is already over 50 years old. When it was first opened back in the 1950s, the fire service was a very different organisation to what it is today. The rescue of people in a non-fire situation was only carried out on a voluntary basis, with the focus being of the service almost exclusively being on putting out fires.

Thanks dippy the Cotterral family I think one of the family members used to be lord lieutenant of herefordshire or Hereford?

Thanks dippy I believe he's rather friendly with the people from Garnons estate?…its out on the Brecon road

Well if it does turn out to be true may I suggest a public hanging, by the testicles if the culprit turns out to be a man? & perhaps a red hot poker could be used somehow? But if it is a female who is responsible then we will have to obviously hang her by something else??

Prince Charles maybe he could help? not that I know him personally mind you but he does own an estate @ harewood end plus loads of land all over the county & donates money to Hereford cathedral as I'm lead to believe?

Here's an interesting read The Meat Market at Smithfield, where the General Market and Fish Market face redevelopment Smithfield Market in London is the greatest parade of 19th-century covered market halls in Europe. Now a storm is breaking over the buildings at the western end – the General Market, with its distinctive dome and arched galleries, and the unusual triangular Fish Market. Henderson Global Investors, backed by the City of London Corporation, is proposing to gut almost all these market halls and replace them with office blocks looming above preserved street frontages. This would be the worst mutilation of a major Victorian building in 30 years. Save Britain’s Heritage, the conservation group that I founded in 1975 with Simon Jenkins, Dan Cruickshank and others, is determined the site should reopen as a retail market modelled on those at Covent Garden, Greenwich and Spitalfields. In all these places covered markets have played a key role in revitalising areas, making them attractive places to work, shop, eat and drink. Smithfield has the potential to be a still bigger magnet, as it stands above two major rail routes: Crossrail running east-west to Heathrow, and Thames Link, which connects Gatwick and Luton airports. More PERSPECTIVE London developers on unsteady ground Overcrowding on the world’s mountains Capitalism’s threat to space A cautionary tale in sq ft National preservation groups, including the Victorian Society and World Monuments Fund, backed by celebrities such as Alan Bennett and Julian Lloyd Webber, have condemned the plans, which the City Corporation voted this month to approve. London’s markets have a long history – Smithfield dates back to the 12th century, and Covent Garden and Spitalfields to the 17th century. Originally, stalls would have been set out in the open air but rising standards of hygiene led to covered markets. Many of these structures are triumphs of Victorian engineering. As a result, London’s historic markets have always been as enjoyable to visit for their architecture as for their produce. Yet in the brave new world of postwar town planning there was little interest in the preservation of these buildings. London’s mighty Caledonian Market was bulldozed in the 1960s. London’s Covent Garden Market would have gone too had the Greater London Council in 1973 been allowed to push through its plans for a six-lane road parallel to the Strand, flanked by office blocks and high-rise hotels, but public outcry won the day. ©Getty Billingsgate Fish Market in 1961 Save has been campaigning for endangered historic buildings for nearly 40 years, with a focus on finding lively new uses and financially viable solutions. Thirty years ago we faced a similar challenge to the present one. In 1980 the City Corporation announced plans to move Billingsgate Fish Market, located on the river Thames near London Bridge, to the Isle of Dogs and said that the £8m cost had to be paid for by replacing the handsome Victorian market building with a new office block. Save challenged the City Corporation and together with the then Richard Rogers Partnership, we produced an alternative scheme showing how the market could be kept for public use, and offices built on the nearby lorry park. When the City finally marketed the building on the basis of our scheme it raised £22m. In 2000, the City Corporation invited Eric Reynolds, the market entrepreneur behind the revival of Greenwich and Spitalfields Markets, to put forward proposals for Smithfield General Market, but never pursued them. The General Market had been built as a retail market in the 1880s and Reynolds proposed it should be revived partly as a food market on the lines of Borough Market south of the Thames. Instead, the City backed an office block proposal – selling a long lease to developers Thornfield. At a public inquiry in 2007-8, Save and English Heritage, the Government’s adviser on historic buildings, secured the rejection of Thornfield’s plans. Ministers agreed that the General Market and Fish Market should be offered for sale on the open market before demolition was considered. Thornfield then went into administration and, instead of being offered for sale, the market buildings were transferred with Thornfield’s assets for a consideration of £50m to AIMco Re Holdings (but ultimately controlled by FREP Holdings Canada). English Heritage now did a curious volte-face, accepting plans by Henderson Global Investors (as agents of FREP Holdings Canada) to gut the General Market that would leave just three preserved frontages on the basis that there was no viable alternative. Eric Reynolds is now offering to invest £28m in converting the General Market and Fish Market as public markets, with different groups of stallholders present on different days. Working with London architect John Burrell, Save also wants to revive the former railway sidings beneath the General Market. This is an amazing netherworld, akin to the water cisterns beneath Istanbul. The idea is to create a London fashion hub to host the growing number of fashion shows in the capital. Revived historic quarters have brought enjoyment as well as economic benefits to almost every city in Europe. A recent report by architects Allies and Morrison, with Strutt & Parker, has shown that repairs to historic buildings in high streets (including market buildings) can increase footfall by up to 6 per cent. The whole Smithfield quarter, like Covent Garden before, has flourished by a process of natural regeneration, as independent shops and restaurants have moved into the premises of departing wholesalers. In Covent Garden the clincher was the decision to preserve and reopen the market halls. Smithfield General Market offers the opportunity for London to lead Europe in showing how another group of market halls can be a catalyst for economic revival. But this is now an issue that can only be resolved in the forum of a public inquiry. The playwright Alan Bennett draws a telling comparison with the great medieval church next to the market. “If you go to St Bartholomew’s and then walk through Smithfield, it is like walking from one cathedral to another. You wouldn’t pull down St Bartholomew’s, nor should you pull down Smithfield. Smithfield was the scene of many martyrdoms – this would be another.†Marcus Binney is executive president of Save Britain’s Heritage -------------------------------------------