Letter: Could Surrey’s Fire Service Deal With Emergencies in the Tall Buildings Planned for Guildford?

Published on: 14 Sep, 2023
Updated on: 14 Sep, 2023

St Edward’s revised southern and eastern elevations of “Block E” in the new planning application for North Street.

From: Bibhas Neogi

In response to: Fire & Rescue Service ‘Needs To Do More’ to Prepare for Incidents in Tall Buildings

As I wrote on November 7, 2022, here in The Dragon: “The height of tall buildings close to the conservation area is of concern to many but I would also be interested to know whether the Surrey Fire & Rescue Service is content that the fire engines will have access around all these tall buildings.

“Access has to be wide enough for the engine’s outriggers. It seems from their model that some of these buildings are too closely located and the access around them seems cramped.”

I raised this with St Edward, during their presentation at Yvonne Arnaud last week, of the revised scheme and the answer was that access around these buildings was adequate.

Could the Fire Service confirm that they are satisfied with the level of access to all these buildings regardless of their heights?

The Dragon will ask SFRS, via SCC, to comment.