Call made for fire unit to be upgraded

A LOCHABER community council is throwing its weight behind moves to get a local unit of Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) volunteers upgraded to let its personnel tackle any emergency incident, writes Mark Entwistle.

Currently the volunteers from the unit based at Spean Bridge can only tackle road traffic accidents and wild fires, as well as providing fire safety advice. But the SFRS nationally is involved in a consultation over its future.

And at this week’s meeting of Spean Bridge, Roy Bridge and Achnacarry Community Council, members agreed its official submission to the SFRS review should call for the local volunteer unit to have its capability upgraded by way of additional training and a new appliance.

Council chairman John Fotheringham pointed out that Spean Bridge and nearby Roy Bridge were the two villages which had seen the biggest expansion in size in Lochaber in the past 20 years, with the former growing by 23 per cent in the 10 years from 2001 to 2011, meaning the need for increased fire and rescue capability was also growing.

When asked by Mr Fotheringham what he would like to see personally, Spean Bridge unit watch manager Scott Andrews, who attended Tuesday night’s council meeting in Kilmonivaig Church hall, said: ‘I’d like to see us upgraded to full capability that would allow us to turn out to any incident, just like any other firefighters.

‘What we can currently turn out to is quite limited and we want those limitations taken off us so we can respond to anything as required.’

Mr Fotheringham said if it was possible to put forward a case for upgrading of the unit without it involving the cost of building a new facility in Spean Bridge, chances of success were much better.

‘I think if we could keep the capital costs of any upgrading to a minimum, that would be the best way to approach this,’ he told the well-attended meeting.

Those at the meeting, however, heard there would be some cost implications from the training required to upgrade the unit, including on the use of breathing apparatus.

Mr Fotheringham said there was no issue with the community council giving 100 per cent support to an upgrading of the fire unit to enable it to respond to any incident as needed.

Councillors agreed this would be their official response to the SFRS review.