A ‘cutting the turf’ ceremony will be held on Monday to mark the start of construction works for two new "state of the art" community fire stations in Hayle and Tolvaddon - as well as the new service headquarters facility also at Tolvaddon.

The Camborne, Pool and Redruth site will be shared with the service's headquarters, which will provide services including fire control, training and vehicle and equipment maintenance, as well as being the service’s administrative centre.

The new Hayle Community Fire Station will be a tri-service facility, shared with Devon and Cornwall Police and South West Ambulance Service Foundation Trust.

Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service Chief Fire Officer Des Tidbury and Cornwall Council cabinet member for homes and communities Geoff Brown will be joined at the turf cutting ceremony by local members, representatives from South West Ambulance Service, Devon and Cornwall Police, the construction company Kier and Lance Kennedy who was the cabinet member involved in the early stages of the project.

Des Tidbury said the start of the work will be a "fantastic day for Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service".

He said: "This project gives us the opportunity to provide modern facilities in the right location to replace our existing community fire stations that are over 50 years old. More importantly, we will be able to significantly improve the fire, rescue and community safety service that we deliver 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year to the people of Cornwall. From these new facilities we can reach 13,900 more residents of Cornwall within our 10 minute response time.”

The new facilities will be environmentally friendly and energy efficient with the Hayle blue light scheme seeing real co-location of emergency services in a modern purpose built facility. The Camborne, Pool and Redruth Community Fire Station will provide a 24 hour response to communities across the area through a crew of wholetime and on call staff. 

The new Hayle station will provide a 24 hour station delivering an ambulance and Rapid Response Car and provide a dispatch point for other ambulance resources during peak demand times.

The new community fire stations are set to be completed in late 2014, with service headquarters completed in early 2015, subject to the weather.

More detail on the programme can be found at www.cornwall.gov.uk/cprh, by emailing cprh@cornwall.gov.uk, by phoning 0300 1234 232 or by writing to Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service, Old County Hall, Truro, TR1 3HA.