Opened in 1990, Gosforth Community Fire Station is located on Jubilee Road, on the north west of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne. It covers areas of both Newcastle and North Tyneside Councils, which include Gosforth, Kenton, Fawdon, Kingston Park, Longbenton, Forest Hall, Killingworth, Wideopen, Dudley and Seaton Burn.

 

The station has two fire appliances and is staffed by 48 full time fire-fighters and 4 support staff. The staff are the main asset and, in addition to responding to emergencies, undertake a range of Community Safety (CS) activities that are primarily aimed at preventing fires and deaths and injuries in fires.

Following completion of proposed building work in the near future, the station will have a dedicated Community Safety Centre, which will house the Community Team & Centre Administrator within an adjoining office.

 

This Community Safety Centre will provide a meeting room with modern IT presentation capabilities for use by local groups to meet and discuss a range of community issues, assisted by the community team. Further plans are under review to provide an additional computer suite, including access to the Internet, for further educational learning. This entire facility is integrated within a fully functional fire station.

The geographical area served by Gosforth Fire Station varies greatly from relatively affluent residential to areas of social deprivation. New modern light and medium industrial sites have also emerged across the area. It also includes Newcastle International Airport which continues to grow and expand its business base with recent terminal building developments.

The population, based on the 2001 Census, is 110,408 persons who are predominantly from Anglo-Saxon background with a relatively small ethnic group (4%). There are 49,465 dwellings within the Station area with approximately: -

 

 

Single parent families occupy 6% of dwellings, with 16.1% single pensioner households.

 

Levels of unemployment across this area indicate 7.6% for males and 4.3% for females. These figures reflect the socio-economic groups residing within individual neighbourhoods, which can be linked to the risk of dwelling fires occurring within the area. This is illustrated in the above map where the red indicates areas where the risk of having a dwelling fire is well above average, orange is above average, yellow is average, blue is below average and green is well below average. Compared to many other station areas within Tyne & Wear, the above average risk areas are relatively small.

 

During 2005/06, the new housing development at Longbenton continues to progress with the demolition of the Arndale shopping centre, replaced by new shops and community facilities in the immediate locality. Existing 3 storey maisonettes have been refurbished with others having undergone a clearance programme to make way for new modern family property developments. This will help to improve the overall image of the area and hopefully reduce what was a hot spot for malicious fires (i.e rubbish, disused premises, vehicles).

 

If you wish to know more about the specific fire service issues in your area and how we intend to address these, details have been included in our Station Plan.