Over the last few weeks I have met with the Lead officers of the Staffordshire Fire Service in the constituency and also attended a Staffordshire wide meeting at Westminster of local MPs and the Chief Fire Officer.

Top of the agenda at both meetings was the future investment needed to make sure that Staffordshire Fire Service maintains its excellent performance record.

First and foremost is what level of support Staffordshire MPs can give to the Private Finance Initiative proposal that is currently with the Treasury awaiting approval.  

The aim of the new investment programme is to build facilities and to upgrade existing centres. This means that in Stoke-on-Trent North the proposal is to build a state of the art facility at Sandyford. This site is near to the A500 to provide best access to the North of the City. Taken with the intended improvements at Burslem and upgrades elsewhere this should lead to safety improvements.

 Another proposal which is not part of the PFI scheme is for Staffordshire to follow the example of other authorities and establish a safety centre where young people can learn about safety measures. There is already such a facility in Birmingham and I am pressing the Staffordshire Service to explore with other partners like the Police and the local authorities and Learning and Skills Council whether we could build something similar here. Teaching home, fire, water and road safety is a huge undertaking, but if it is done well it can do a great deal to prevent accidents of all kinds. Preventative measures like this can really contribute to reduction of accidents and fatalities: they are partially behind the halving of deaths from fire since 1981.

There is a willingness to look at new ways of accident and fire prevention. One issue which I would like to see prioritised is what more can be done to support elderly people living alone at home. Also we are beginning too see the results of the cadet schemes that have been set up across Staffordshire to introduce our young people to the fire service ethos and responsible citizenship. Measures like these do a great deal to promote community cohesion.

Whenever I meet the Fire Officers who serve our constituency I am always impressed by their commitment and enthusiasm for their work. They believe in the service they provide, they often turn out at local festivals and carnivals and open days to help the community understand more about community safety, and they always go that extra distance to do a good job.

This month they are literally going that extra distance - all the way to Poland. It is heartening to see serving fire officers using their experience to help others. So a big thank you to those who are travelling out to Sokolow Malapowski near to Rzeow in Poland to help people in a care home there to improve the facilities they have. It is joint efforts like this that build real bonds between people and communities and we can be proud that our local firemen and women here in Staffordshire are showing such leadership.

Finally I was very proud that the Burslem Fire Station put on a special celebration for retired fire station manager Mr Bob Whitby to commemorate his 100^th birthday and all that he contributed to fire safety down the years. It is exactly this intergenerational commitment to the service that seals the commitment and enthusiasm of today's serving officers. I think that we can all be justifiably proud of the people and achievements and future plans of Staffordshire's Fire Service.

If you live in Stoke-on-Trent North and would like to know more about what I am doing to support the fire service, then please get in touch.