How do you consolidate three fire stations into one?

Background

The rural, urban and industrial areas of Bewdley, Stourport and Kidderminster have a population of around 100,000.  The combined age of the fire stations in each of these towns is 200 years. It was decided that co-location of these three old stations into an Emergency Services Hub would bring major benefits into the community by enabling:

• closer sharing of operational intelligence
• smarter risk prevention activity
• improved incident response activity.

As well as the fire and rescue service, the hub would accommodate the Police Safer Neighbourhood Team and Severn Area Rescue Association.

The Brief

Not only was the new fire hub to house whole-time firefighters and on-call firefighters, the site also needed to be autonomous in the event of a power outage and provide the very best in training facilities, including:

• a ‘hot fire house’ that uses LPG to create realistic scenarios
• a steel framed tower to allow for high level working and rescues
• a dedicated road traffic collision area that incorporates a section of dual carriageway
• a large water pit that will enable training with the High Volume Pump (HVP).

These facilities, leading and pioneering in their sector,  allow the Water First Responder Team and the Environmental Protection Unit to train and operate from the facility on an ongoing basis.  The plan is also for the facility to house the latest drone team – to give a bird’s eye view on all major incidents.

Challenges

The challenges that we had to overcome included:

• numerous and complex planning restrictions
• nearby residential property and safety considerations
• minimising carbon emissions from the building energy consumption (not the smoke from the hot fire house!)
• achieving an Energy Performance Certificate target of B

Process

By running simulations through dynamic thermal modelling, and many SBEM calculations, we were able to identify solutions to meet the brief both in terms of aesthetics and performance requirements.

We also took the necessary steps to minimise noise and light pollution during the project for the nearby residents.

Outcome

Through an iterative design process, and excellent dynamics with the design team, we were able to make the building plans work and gain planning permission, even against stringent controls.  We were able to achieve this by applying low or zero carbon technologies (LZCs) in the form of combined heat and power (CHP) plant and by use of natural daylighting plus energy efficient comfort conditioning.

The 3.5 acre brown-field site, off Stourport Way in Kidderminster, has been developed into a cutting edge facility, ideally placed to serve the communities. The £7.6 million investment is part-funded by £2.38 million from the Government Fire Transformation Fund.  The project was delivered to the brief.  It was on time and on budget.