Agenda item

To receive the Chairman’s announcements (if any).

The Chairman announced that:

She wished to thank former Members Andrew Cole, Wendy Mallen, Douglas McCall, Tim Mills, Hannah Minns and Liz Walsh for their service on the Authority; and to welcome the four new Members from Buckinghamshire Council, Ralph Bagge, Bill Chapple OBE, Ashley Waite, and Matthew Walsh; and two new Members from Milton Keynes Council, Emily Darlington and Allan Rankine.

The Service was currently undergoing its third inspection by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services. The current inspection started on 24 May 2021 and is being undertaken virtually, (due to Covid-19 restrictions) over several weeks, concluding in early July. I look forward to receiving our inspection report, which will be published in the Autumn.

After over 25 years in the public sector, Fraser Pearson, Communications Manager is retiring from Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service. Fraser joined from Buckinghamshire County Council, in 2005, when the majority of news was found in print and Facebook had just launched. During his time he has led on getting our safety messages out to the community and promoting the work of the service, from news articles to Twitter posts, with national media often picking up our messages. Fraser’s social media posts regularly reach over 20,000 people across Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes and beyond. On behalf of the Authority, I would like to thank Fraser for his dedicated service to Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service.

The past couple of weeks have seen the Service attend a number of challenging incidents that despite the repeated endeavours of our operational crews, sadly resulted in the tragic deaths of two young males. During the recent Bank Holiday Monday, operational crews were mobilised in the afternoon, to separate water related incidents the first being at Abbotsbrook, Bourne End and the second in Olney. Both incidents involved young males entering the water, which on each occasion attracted a multi-agency response and the deployment of our specialist water rescue teams from Beaconsfield and Newport Pagnell respectively.

The Service works tirelessly to reduce the number of these incidents, through simple safety messaging and supporting the national water safety campaigns, such as the recent National Fire Chiefs Council ‘Be Water Aware’ campaign, that took place between the 26 April – 2 May 2021. Following these dreadful incidents, water safety messages were again reiterated through our various media platforms, receiving 25,000 views and being shared on 250 occasions.

A further notable incident occurred at the Cressex Business Park, High Wycombe, which involved an industrial property fire. The incident required an operational response from all three fire and rescue services within the Thames Valley, with ten pumps and two aerial appliances required to bring about its safe and controlled resolution. The fire developed extremely quickly, which meant the chances of saving the effected industrial units were unlikely. Therefore, firefighting operations concentrated on mitigating the spread of fire to adjacent premises. Perhaps unsurprisingly this incident generated significant interest with more than 4,000 visits to the page about the incident on the BFRS website and 17,000 website visits overall (more than seven times our daily average).