Delayed fire centre approved as costs rise to £3m

Tweaked plans for a new fire training centre have been approved after the project was delayed and costs doubled.

The site, on a vacant plot of council-owned land in Rugby, Warwickshire, will see fire and rescue situations simulated and will cost about £3m.

Permission was originally granted in 2023 but the county council was asked to refresh its permission to allow changes to the site layout.

The site was most recently used as a highways depot but has lay dormant since 2021.

Alongside a fire house, there will be a welfare building containing changing rooms, showers, toilets, storage, offices, meeting rooms and a kitchenette.

The approval means work that started in February towards the council’s target completion date of “mid-2024” can continue.

In September 2023, a council report said the unit was due to be “sited and fully operational by February 2024” at a cost of just shy of £2.5m.

By December, that date had moved out to April 2024 with costs jumping to £3m.

The £3m figure represented a doubling of the original budget, which required about £1.5m to be transferred from money allocated to sprucing up Warwickshire Fire & Rescue’s headquarters in Leamington Spa.

Neither of those estimates accounted for the £750k fire training unit itself, something that was separately budgeted for.

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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