08 Mar Yaxley Community Fire Station opens in Cambridgeshire
Yaxley Community Fire and Rescue Station in Cambridgeshire was officially opened by the Chairman of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Fire Authority Sir Peter Brown and Chief Fire Officer Chris Strickland on Wednesday the 1st March.
The original station built in 1879 has been sensitively refurbished with a new build element adjoined to it. The station now has a lecture room, office, welfare facilities and bay with space for one fire engine, along with a new smoke house training facility that replaced the old drill tower at the back of the site. Local community groups are able to use the facilities such as the kitchenette and lecture room.
The station is crewed by on-call firefighters who live or work in the village.
Watch Commander John Cox said: “The project was a first for the Service because normally any new work is based around existing architectural plans. However with Yaxley an architect had to design the new part of the building based around the existing station, which is situated on a narrow site as well as built on a slope. The work blends in very nicely with what was there and retains the history of the station.
“I was delighted to be part of the project. I was involved in the development of the site from the planning and development stage, and so were staff, which makes it a very pleasurable working environment and we have now got everything we need.”