MIDDLEWICH MP Fiona Bruce has praised Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service for investing in improvements to the town’s fire station.

Although now only manned by on-call firefighters, the fire station off Lewin Street, was selected as one of 21 of the service’s stations to be renovated.

It comes as part of a modernisation programme which will see £8.5 million invested in the 21 stations and was first revealed in September.

Now, after meeting with chief fire officer Mark Cashin, Fiona Bruce MP, has lauded the investment programme.

Fiona, MP for the Congleton constituency, said: “I was tremendously encouraged to hear that following the success of the new fire station in Alsager which is so well used by community groups Middlewich Fire Station will be renovated over the next three to four years.

“It was also good to hear that continuous improvements across the area mean that callout times have been improved with 87 per cent of attendances to incidents by fire officers now arriving in under ten minutes.”

It has not yet been revealed what renovations will be carried out at the Middlewich Fire Station, but the service says that while some of the 21 earmarked for improvements remain fit for purpose, others need a ‘major rehauling’.

Andrew Leadbetter, director of governance and commissioning at the fire authority, said: “We’ve got an ageing, old-fashioned, deteriorating set of buildings that need a significant refreshment to bring them up to a modern standard, and your new fire stations have raised expectations.

“We now have a good idea of what is needed, and thankfully more than half of the 21 fire stations remain fit for use.

“But unfortunately, we need some significant works at the other nine.

“And three of them need a really good, major rehauling to make them work properly.

“Works of this kind will obviously cause disruption, so we can’t do this stuff everywhere at once, so we need to prioritise and manage the programme well.”