Staffordshire Commissioner for Police, Fire and Rescue and Crime, Matthew Ellis has seen first-hand the great progress made at Hanley Fire Station to enable both police and fire to work out of the base in the New Year.
The work, which will make the station suitable for Staffordshire Police’s northern response team to work alongside fire colleagues, started back in the summer and despite the pandemic is on track for the police to move in early in the New Year.
Accommodating both police and fire at Hanley delivers on the promises made by the Commissioner to make both emergency services more sustainable financially through collaboration and plough funds back into both services, benefiting all who live and work in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.
‘The building work at Hanley, which will see police join fire colleagues in what is currently a fire-only building, was very impressive.
‘Measures in place to guard against Covid mean there’s a great chance the construction work will be completed on schedule and ready for police to move in early next year. I want to thank everyone involved for their exceptional work in extraordinary circumstances, ’said Mr Ellis.
‘Earlier this year, Tamworth was the first building to be used jointly by the two emergency services. It is working well.
‘Sharing building costs is not only good value for public money, it will help to maintain spending on our emergency services in what is likely to be a very difficult financial climate post-Covid.
‘Spending public money more effectively means it can be ploughed back into both services and that has always been my priority and it has never been more relevant than in these challenging times.
‘Bringing the two services together in Hanley fire station, which is an impressive large, modern, operational building has always made sense. Especially when both services were situated in the centre of Hanley, just a few hundred yards from each other,’ the Commissioner added.
The new station will be known as Fire and Police Hanley.
