Tynemouth Community Fire Station

Tynemouth Fire station was opened in November 1959 by the Tynemouth County Borough and was amalgamated into the Tyne and Wear Fire Brigade with the local Government reorganisation in 1974. The Station area encompasses Tynemouth, North Shields, Chirton , Preston, Shiremoor, Whitley Bay, Percy Main and Backworth

 

The Community Fire Station shares the site with Tynemouth Ambulance Station and also two other Fire Service Departments:- Legislative Fire Safety and Community Safety.

 

The appliances are staffed with 52 firefighters and 5 support staff including a Station Clerk. The crews are called upon to attend a wide variety of incidents and also deliver Community Safety advice and training to the general public. We are also engaged in promoting the use of Smoke Alarms and have an extensive programme of fitting smoke alarms to domestic properties. This is designed to reduce fire deaths, injuries from fire and damage to property.

 

The Legislative Fire safety department deals with all Fire related matters in North Tyneside. These include major planning applications, inspecting business premises and licensing issues.

 

The community safety department is involved in promoting fire safety to the general public. They work in partnership with North Tyneside Council and Northumbria police and are heavily involved in an education programme within the schools in North Tyneside. A partnership with Northumbria Police has allowed an Arson Task Force to be created and they tackle the problem of deliberate fire setting and allow us to target our resources where they are most needed. This has proved to be a success in other areas of the Fire Service in recent years.

 

A Young Firefighters Association meets once a week and this provides opportunities to the young people of the area to be part of our organisation. They train with their own fire appliance supplied by the local firm, Atmel, and receive training and development through their instructors who are Fire Service personnel

The geographical area covered by this station is the North East section of Tyne and Wear. It is bounded on two sides by the North Sea and the river Tyne and extends west to the A19 Trunk Road.

 

The water risk is apparent and the river promotes many risks associated with vessels of all sizes. We have a wide cross section of domestic property in our area and these range from large Victorian town houses to compact council estates. The population, based on the 2001 Census, is 96,498 persons who are from various ethnic backgrounds. These include Anglo-Saxon’s 94.85%, non UK origin 2.8% and non white 2.1%. There are 44,199 dwellings within the station area with approximately: -

 

 

Single parent families occupy 6.5 % of dwellings, with 17.1% single pensioner households. Households with dependant children total 28.0 %. Levels of unemployment across this area vary from 8.3% for males to 4.5% 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 risk of having a dwelling fire is well above average is shown in red, orange is above average, yellow is average, blue is below average and green is well below average.

 

The business community is expanding and new business parks are developing around the Middle Engine Lane area.

 

We have a large hospital, North Tyneside General on Rake Lane and a large number of Residential Care Homes, predominantly around the coastal area.

 

Two Major road pass through the Station area, the A1058 Coast Road to Newcastle and A19 Trunk Road. These pose a significant risk due to the large amount of traffic both within the District and passing through it.

 

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.