Sussex Local News

Sussex Local News

09/01/10 £21million Funding Boost - Fire and Rescue Service

Fire and Rescue Services in England will get £21million for 2009/2010 to support their work in dealing with major incidents.

Improving urban search and rescue (USAR), mass decontamination and pumping capability are part of the Government’s £1billion investment in vital equipment to ensure that England’s FRS are equipped to deal with major incidents such as terrorism, industrial accident or extreme weather.

Mr Malik also announced that nearly 90 percent of England’s Fire and Rescue Service’s vehicles have now been fitted with new radios and are now on a new Firelink digital radio network. The new radio system enables all the emergency services to speak to each other during live incidents and thus makes the co-ordination of dealing with major incidents easier and helps to save lives.

Speaking at the official opening of a national urban search and rescue training centre in West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, Fire Minister Shahid Malik said: “I am delighted to be able to confirm that the Government is providing the Fire and Rescue Services with £21million to support their work in dealing with major incidents. This shows the Government’s continued support for the FRS and public safety.

“I am also delighted to officially open a new national urban search and rescue (USAR) training centre led by West Yorkshire FRS. The importance of the USAR capability in dealing with major incidents was seen earlier this week when search equipment was used following the building collapse in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. I am grateful to West Yorkshire for being supportive of this initiative which is so important to public safety.

“The Government's £1billion investment in Fire and Rescue Services is already delivering significant capability - a digital radio system to enable the emergency services to speak to each other during live incidents and new vehicles and equipment to respond to natural disasters or terrorist incidents.”

The £21million confirmed today covers the FRSs costs of supporting major incident capability includes:

• Training for :
  
  • urban search and rescue teams including the search dogs;
    
  • using high volume pumps to deal with flooding or major fires;
    
  • teams that use specialist equipment for detecting and identifying potentially hazardous substances;
    
  • mass decontamination for when large numbers of people need to have hazardous substances - which could be chemical, biological; radiological or nuclear - washed off them quickly.
    
• Maintaining the protective clothing for firefighters working in difficult conditions;
  • Replacing oxygen and timber supplies needed to simulate real life situations in training, support; and
  
• Funding West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority to provide the national co-ordination centre for monitoring the availability and mobilising vital special New Dimension equipment such as high volume pumps and urban search and rescue teams.
  

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