Work to begin on new Horsham Fire Station and Training Centre

Work is due to get underway at the site of West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service’s brand new Horsham Fire Station and Training Centre.

West Sussex County Council’s appointed contractor, Willmott Dixon, is expected to begin early works on the site off the A24 at Highwood Mill in the next few weeks.

The site will be home to a brand-new 24-hour fire station for Horsham, along with an industry-leading training centre, including a live fire training facility and road traffic collision training area.

The new fire station will incorporate all the best practice around firefighters’ health and wellbeing, including improved contamination management for firefighters returning from incidents.

In addition to various training rooms used for digital simulations and assessments, three ancillary buildings will assist in the delivery of real-life scenarios:

• combined training tower and breathing apparatus facility
• realistic live-fire training facility
• residential recruit training
• incident command training facility
• realistic road traffic collision training area

The learning and development centre will include residential accommodation to deliver firefighter training.

The new facility has an emphasis on renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and air-source heat pumps providing heating, as well as electric vehicle charging points in-line with the county council’s drive to become carbon neutral by 2030.

Cabinet Member for Community Support, Fire and Rescue Service, Duncan Crow, said: ‘I am delighted that work will soon be underway on site to deliver this fantastic training facility and new fire station for our firefighters. We are committed to delivering a project that we can all be proud of.’

Chief Fire Officer, Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, said: ‘Our new fire station and training centre marks a significant investment from West Sussex County Council in our service, ensuring we have state-of-the-art facilities to carry out our work and continue our training. Work beginning on site marks the culmination of many years of planning and I very much look forward to seeing the project beginning to take shape.’