4:40pm Saturday 6th February 2010
By Chris Gregory
A TEMPORARY fire station, set up five years ago as part of a trial to combat arson in a Basingstoke suburb, will close next week.
Every day for the past five years, a fire engine and crew from Basingstoke fire station have spent an afternoon and evening based at a portable building by the Popley Fields Community Centre, in Carpenter’s Down, Popley.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service created the base in a bid to improve response times to fires in the area, including cases of arson.
But as of next Friday, the cabin will be taken from the site as the fire service looks to concentrate resources in other areas of the town, and starts to roll out the lessons learned from the Popley trial elsewhere in the county.
Hampshire Fire and Rescue group manager Dave Norgate told The Gazette that the trial had been such a success that the temporary building will be used in a similar trial in Gosport.
He said: “We have got to the point now where we have got to make a decision as an organisation. It was a success for us. We have reduced the numbers of calls across the board. We are going to take the lessons learned from Popley and apply them to other areas of Basingstoke and elsewhere.”
Mr Norgate said the number of secondary fires in Popley, such as on areas of grassland and in rubbish bins, has fallen from 126 in 2005-06 to 65 incidents in 2008-09.
Despite the growing pressure on budgets, Mr Norgate added that firefighters would continue to run fire and road safety campaigns and initiatives in the area as well as across the whole of the Basingstoke region.
And in April, Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service will start a new scheme where some firefighters will go out on bike patrols in a bid to cement ties with communities in Basingstoke and to check on known troublespots for deliberate fires.
Councillor Jane Frankum, who represents the Popley area on Hampshire County Council and sits on the Hampshire and Fire and Rescue Authority, said: “I think the trial went a lot further than reducing fires and hoax calls.
“There was a lot more confidence and a huge amount of respect from the local community for the fire service.”
She added: “This idea has caught on nationally, so Popley has led the way nationally.”
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