DEVON and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service has applied for planning permission to upgrade Bere Alston Fire Station to bring it into the twenty-first century.

The fire station on Station Road needs improved facilities for firefighters to change into their kit and clean equipment and decontaminate it after attending a shout. The plans also include a disabled toilet with a ramp to access it.

Full details and the plans can be viewed on the planning section of the West Devon Borough Council site, app 4729/21/FUL. In a statement provided to the planners, Ellie Scott from the fire service explained that the current buildings were built in the 1960s and only had one toilet and shower room, which is considered insufficient nowadays and which also does not comply with disability legislation.

‘The station was designed to comply with the minimum requirements of an on-call station at the time, which is now outdated,’ she said. ‘Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service are proposing an extension to the existing building to provide improved facilities as required by a modern service. The existing lecture, office and WC spaces have been reconfigured [in the new plans] to suit an improved space for drill nights and training.’

The proposal will also see windows and a door removed to create new door openings in the new extension and the training tower, used by crew on their weekly drill nights, moved to make way for the proposed extension.

Also among the plans this week are proposals to make the derelict Old Mill buildings off Mill Road in Okehampton safe. Currently the footpath running alongside the site near Okehampton College is cordoned off due to concerns about the end gable of the building closest to the footpath potentially collapsing.

Site owners, charity the Okehampton Skills and Sports Trust are applying, 1439/22/FUL, for permission to shore up the gable end to make it safe following the borough council refusing permission to demolish the buildings.

They point out that the footpath is a safe route into town for students from Okehampton College avoiding the traffic on Mill Road and that until the gable end, which has been further destablilised by Storm Eunice, is made safe, it can’t be reopened.

Also among planning applications this week:

Conversion of barn into dwelling, Forda Farm, Sourton — http://apps.westdevon.gov.uk/PlanningSearchMVC/Home/Details/221464

Detached four-bedroom house, Breckland, Down Road, Tavistock — http://apps.westdevon.gov.uk/PlanningSearchMVC/Home/Details/221572