Conservative Fire Station Claims confirmed as untrue

LDWC

by Liberal Democrats Windsor Constituency

16 Dec 2014

Windsor's Fire Engine is now based in Slough for most purposes.

Conservative claims that they sited the new Windsor Fire depot at Tinker's lane because there were more fire in West Windsor, have again been exposed as untrue. News

Last month Windsor Liberal Democrats published figures, obtained from Royal Berkshire Fire and Recue, showing that in the previous twelve months there had been, far more fires in the east of Windsor's "station ground" near the closed St Mark's Road Fire Station.

Responding to our comments a Conservative Spokesman told the Royal Borough Observer,

"We looked at the number of fatal fires in the past five years and the number of houses in the area. The location makes sense as the appliance can go to a lot more places within eight minutes due to the better transport links."

Further FOI requests revealed that:

no "blue light tests" have been conducted from Tinker's Lane to check the appliance can properly cover the station ground from the Dedworth Road site.
in the past 5 years that have been two fatal fires in Windsor, one in Old Windsor and one in West Windsor.
the number of house fires was greater in the east of Windsor's "station ground", than in the west.

A series of FOI requests asking to know the location of the Windsor Fire Appliance and how much time it spent at the new fire depot / on the Windsor station ground, as opposed to at Slough and in other parts of Berkshire, were all refused.

We suspect the the truth is the Tinker's Lane site was chosen because it was a cheap option involving council owned land.

The new fire depot itself is a £600,000 "cheap option" as it lacks most of the required facilities of a proper fire station

**House Fires Within the Windsor Station Ground over the past 5 years (source RBFRS FOI- 2014-0186**
Areas West of Royal Windsor Way / Imperial Road / Winkfield Road	No. of Fires (Fatal)	Areas East of Royal Windsor Way / Imperial Road / Winkfield Road	No of Fires (Fatal)
Bray CP	0	Castle Without Ward	37
Bray Ward	3	Datchet Ward	3
Clewer East Ward	17	Eton and Castle Ward
Clewer North Ward	21	Eton CP
Clewer South Ward	10 (1)	Old Windsor Ward	11 (1)
Winkfield and Cranbourne Ward	1	Park Ward	13

Total	52 (1)	Total	64 (1)

Sources:

Freedom of Information Act Request:RBFRS Request for Information No.2014-0186 - Statistics: House Fires and Fatal Fires in Windsor Fire Station Ground (5 years)
Freedom of Information Act Request: RBFRS Request for Information No.2014-0156 - Statistics: Fires in West and Central Windsor - Sept/Oct 2014
Windsor Conservatives "in touch" leaflet for Clewer North - July 2014
Royal Borough Observer - online

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