Q. How will you manage car parking on site?
A. Enough spaces have been included in the design to allow for an individual parking space for each of the wholetime crew, on-call responding crews, instructors, admin staff and students attending courses. There is no multi-storey or underground parking in the design.
Q. Will the training tower be higher?
A. There will be no increased height to any of the buildings on the site and the new buildings will be no higher. The training tower will have some additions to support our specialist rescue training, this will not be increasing the height and will be extended towards the inside of the site.
Q. Why have you chosen to put the training centre at Weymouth fire station?
A. We currently lease land at West Moors. We own the building at Weymouth, and it is currently costing us £52k per year to keep an empty building. We have a statutory duty to ensure sustainable and effective operational training for our firefighters, and there is value in securing this site for this purpose. It will allow us to have two training centres – one in the north of our Service area and one in the south. The building can be repurposed to meet classroom training requirements, and the outside site can be developed to provide environmentally friendly training facilities, making Weymouth fire station an important location for us and the community.
Q. Will there be an increase in light pollution from the site?
A. No, all new external lighting will be managed by controls according to the use and type of light fittings being installed, the design will include time clocks and dusk/dawn sensors, and we will also utilise downlighters and low level bollard lighting where practicable.
Q. Will there be a lot more noise from the site?
A. Crews at the station currently train during the day and in the evenings. The new facilities will mean that training will happen more frequently during the day, with one additional evening course per month, and some weekends. The evening training will always stop by 9pm at the latest. The design will also reduce the noise from current levels experienced, with the introduction of acoustic fencing along the perimeters; where possible, training will take place inside the acoustic building and all live fires will take place in the purpose-built fire house.
Q. How will you avoid increased noise?
A. The site will be surrounded by acoustic fencing along the existing borders. The new appliance bay garage will be an insulated acoustic building for additional protection.
Q. Will you remove the planting on the boundaries?
A. The existing planting on our boundaries will be tidied up and we may also add additional planting to our side of the boundary fencing, which will be regularly maintained.
Q. Are you extending the site from the existing boundaries, i.e. into the allotments?
A. We are only using the existing site footprint and have no intention of extending this.
Q. How far away from the boundary fence will the new appliance garage be positioned?
A. The new appliance bay garage will be located approximately 10ft away from the boundary alongside the East Wyld Road properties. The fire house will be no higher than a residential house.
Q. Will there be an impact on water pressure for residents, due to the training taking place?
A. There will be no impact on water pressure for neighbouring residents. The training area will use its own hydrant, along with water from fire appliances.