Clerkenwell firefighters are being forced to commute more than 20 miles despite three floors of family accommodation at their fire station lie derelict and unused.
Three floors of the historic Clerkenwell fire station, the oldest working station in Europe have been lying empty for over fifty years. The space was once well-kept family accommodation for the stations’ firefighters. Now yellowing clown covered wallpaper peels on the walls of what was once a child’s bedroom and plastic crates litter the floor of an old firefighter’s living room.
Local pigeons have made their home in the cracked porcelain sinks of the old laundry and industrial Victorian uniform dryer rusts in obscurity.
Meanwhile firefighters are forced to commute hours each day to their homes.
Clerkenwell Station manager John Lalor said:
“We have six or seven floors here including the ground floor, and the top three are unoccupied now. They used to be for the fire fighters and their families. They would have lived here and worked here. They were working 100 hour shifts in those days. They still do a 48 hour shift now. That works out as two 9 hour days and then two 15 hour nights.
“We have some people who live in the area, but most of them can’t afford to live in London. Being a young fireman, it’s not a big wage. We have one lad here who lives 27 miles outside London and commutes in for his shifts, I myself live in Windsor and most of the people who work here have to travel 1 to 2 hours a day just to get into work.”
According to the property website Nestoria the average yearly rent for a 2-bed apartment Clerkenwell is £24,504. With a starting salary of just £25,736 an Islington firefighter would have less than £103 left over per month for all other expenses. The salary rises to just £32,691 when firefighters have completed full training which would leave fully qualified firefighters with under £700 a month.
Joe McVeigh regional secretary of the Fire Brigades Union said: “Acton fire station is a great example of a station converting the old rooms on fire station property into accommodation subsidised for their own firefighters. If there was a willingness to do that at Clerkenwell it would certainly be possible to build subsidized accommodation which would make a huge impact on the quality of life of the workers at the station.
“The London Fire Brigade has made it clear that they do not want to get involved with where employees live. They say that their firefighters are free to live wherever they want to, but Clerkenwell is an expensive area to rent or to buy and so it is virtually impossible for young recruits to afford to live close by.
“On top of this employees at the station have to commute long distances for their shifts. The transport links there are not great and there is nowhere for people who are driving in to park, especially in the bad weather it can be a big struggle for firefighters to get in to work on time which puts their jobs and people’s safety in danger.”
Neil Walker, a firefighter at Clerkenwell, lives in Liverpool with his wife and child and commutes to Islington for his shifts. He said “Most of the firefighters can’t afford to live in London. They live outside because the schools are better and the houses are more affordable.
“The young ones want to live in the city though, and they just can’t afford to. There are five or six firefighters who at Clerkenwell who live in Essex, Suffolk and Hertfordshire when they want to be in town. ”
“When I first started in the fire service there were a lot of flats for the firefighters and a lot of people lived at the stations, but there’s less and less now and it’s a waste to have so much space lying empty.”
“The fire service is very money orientated, they are more likely to sell the space to a developer for a profit, and that money will probably not reach the workers.”
At the moment however, Clerkenwell’s upper floors are neither making money nor providing much needed facilities for its key workers. If the estimated 15,000 square foot of property were to be sold or rented privately millions of pounds could be made to be reinvested in the fire service and station.
Marco Fugaccia, Manager of Clerkenwell estate agents Hurford Salvi Carr said:
“Properties like that are an absolute rarity in this area and I am certain that if this ever went on the market there would be a queue of people waiting for a chance to buy the property. The loft style apartments that could be converted are always popular, and to get one so central, over three floors would be completely astonishing.”
Martin Simpson, Senior Communications Officer at the London Fire Brigade said:
“We have an ongoing project to maximize value from the Brigade’s estate. We were given approval by London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority in January 2008 to pursue a scheme with a development partner for redevelopment/refurbishment of Clerkenwell Fire Station including the empty accommodation above the station. The scheme is currently not being pursued due to market conditions.”
