New flood rescue team for Pershore (From Evesham Journal)

New flood rescue team for Pershore

11:36am Tuesday 22nd December 2009

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PERSHORE is one of seven fire stations across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to gain ‘first responder’ water rescue teams to provide additional rescue support during floods.

Following the 2007 floods, Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service (HWFRS) carried out work to determine what improvements were necessary to strengthen its response to floods and to ensure the safety of crews.

All fire fighters across the force are trained in water and flood awareness and have basic equipment to undertake rescues from the bank side.

The service also has highly trained specialist water and flood rescue teams at Evesham, Worcester and Hereford who are equipped to enter the water if necessary to carry out rescues, either swimming or in specialist rescue boats.

But after taking into account local flood/water risks, together with the experience from 2007, the force identified a need for a number of trained ‘first responder’ teams to be equipped with dry suits and other equipment to enable them to work safely in flood water.

Following a meeting last Friday (18), HWFR approved the establishment of seven new flood rescue teams at Pershore, Kidderminster, Tenbury, Upton-on-Severn, Ross-on-Wye, Bromyard and Leintwardine.

Chief fire officer, Paul Hayden, said: “It is disappointing to note that despite the recommendations made by Sir Michael Pitt in his review of the 2007 floods there has been no government money made available for flood rescue.

“As fire services still do not have a statutory duty to rescue people from flood water, the costs fall entirely on our local service and local communities.

“We know all too well that we have a significant need for flood rescue capability in our two counties and we typically rescue between 30 and 60 people from the water each year.

“Less frequent major floods, as were last seen in 2007, resulted in the rescue of more than 1,100 people across Herefordshire and Worcestershire alone.

“Whilst we could undoubtedly do even more given government funding support, we have to take into account the costs involved to ensure that we continue to offer both an effective service and value for money.

“The cost of providing this specialist service across our two counties, including equipment such as boats and dry suits, amounts to 30 pence per year for a Band D council tax payer.”

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