Closure of the Fire Station in May 1998

A little chilled and gently heckling, local villagers, retired firemen and the great and the good of the district gathered outside Tysoe's Old Fire Station in the Warwickshire (UK) village of Tysoe.

They were there to see the re-opening of the building which had closed as a fire station 6 years before.  Glasses charged, they were ready to celebrate.

It was a far more solemn crowd that had gathered in the same spot nearly six years before when the local fire station had been closed. The locals had fought the closure long and hard but then Home Office funding stopped entirely and the volunteer fire service, after a century of serving its district, was forced to disband.

The fire station building then lay empty with windows boarded. Weeds pushed through tarmac laid, in a fabulously ironic piece of local government legislation, for the station's closing ceremony. The moribund building was a glum reminder that Tysoe was joining the ranks of those villages in decline across the English countryside.

That was until local resident Samantha Littlewood, goaded by an energetic project team, successfully took a proposal to the district and county councils. Their goal: to turn the moribund fire station into a multi-purpose community facility.

The first hurdle successfully cleared, the bureaucracy stretched ahead and vast grant applications had to be completed. The process seemed interminable until 2003 when DEFRA came to the project team's aid with an unprecedented offer: a grant for 80% of the £220,000 needed to refurbish the fire station building.

It was an extraordinary grant offer: the largest ever awarded by DEFRA or any of its counterparts within the EU. However it did come with strings. The project team were required to raise the final 20% within a defined time frame, or the offer would be withdrawn. And to complicate matters, the final monies could not be sourced through any other public funds.

It was a long and often frustrating two years, so little wonder that spirits were running high as the crowd waited for the ribbon cutting.

Local vicar Revd David Knight was there to bless the refurbished building and also as an interested party - he had been one of the volunteer firemen. "This is one of the very few occasions you'll see me giving a prayer with a glass of champagne in my hand," Revd Knight grinned "and what's great is that this building still looks like a fire station!"

John Maples MP, there to officially cut the ribbon (see picture left) remembered "six years ago, the incredible sense of depression when the fire service decided to close this fire station. We unsuccessfully fought it and to see this in it's place makes cliches containing the words 'clouds' and 'silver linings' spring to mind. It is fantastic..." and addressing the gathered villagers: "It is terrific what you've managed to achieve."

The closure of the fire station and the end of the service had been deeply felt in the area. Local resident and author, Kevin Wyles, explained "the Fire Service was started in 1897 by the Marquess of Northampton.

It was in a thatched station originally, the last in Britain, (picture right) and we moved into this new station in 1972. We had a crew all that time until the station was closed down in 1998. The Chief Officer and the UK Home Office were saying at the time that we were an over-provision,... and that other stations could get here in under the 20 minutes... We'd have liked it to have stopped as a fire station because we think we need one in the village. It was a service people had relied on for 101 years. It had always been here and we're isolated - we think we need it." He sighed " ... But this building has been lying empty for all these years so best of luck to them. I think they've done a tremendous job."

Where one community service had been closed, now another was opening. A tired but jubilant Samantha Littlewood, refurbishment committee Chairperson, spoke of the Fire Station's new incarnation as a multi-purpose community facility: "It is vital to have this facility here. This is a thriving rural community but obviously we suffer like most from rural isolation and rural deprivation and rural unemployment... this building is going to provide much needed services to the local community, across all ages, and it will offer employment in a rural area too"

This relative rural deprivation is a recognised problem, according to County Councillor Izzy Seccombe. "There is an awful lot of money available through Advantage West Midlands, for example, but it is targetted strictly at urban areas". In her opinion, rural areas, already disadvantaged through isolation, have their disadvantages multiplied by the fact that "the larger funds are going straight through into urban areas." But while there is an awareness or recognition of rural deprivation, according to Councillor Seccombe, it is extremely hard to map the problem.

It is up to the villages, therefore, to deal with their isolation and this deprivation. According to John Maples, their survival depends upon self-reliance: "It is an absolutely vital characteristic of villages that if they are going to stay alive, they need facilities like this that can be used for a multiplicity of purposes, to bring people together and create some sort of common bond, providing those various facilities." In the case of the Old Fire Station in Tysoe, he commented "what's also great, I think, is that so much of the money raised was found in the village through voluntary contributions," showing the incredible support this project had. It was that money raised which provided the much needed leverage to get the DEFRA public funds.

It is to the credit of the local residents that they made this project happen, graciously overlooking the fact that the building they worked so hard to renew, continues to be in the gift of those that govern. The village and district wanted and needed this facility, if only to replace the one that had been taken away, and their hard work achieved it.

Tysoe villagers had a lot to celebrate: some celebrated self-reliance and determination, others the rejuvenation of their village; and then there were all those firemen celebrating some great memories of the fire service!