With millions more visitors expected in the UK this summer, the country’s security resilience is being boosted by the allocation of additional emergency services resources. Dedicated firefighter teams are being assembled and located around the country to be on standby to deploy at short notice should extra response be needed.
A combination of the ongoing Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the Olympics and the Paralympics, in addition to the growing interest in the UK as a holiday destination, is expected to create a major surge in the number of tourists and corporate activity, especially to London, during June, July and August. All the emergency services are reviewing their response capabilities and planning their resource capacity accordingly.
Eleven teams of firefighters of varying sizes are being assembled and trained to provide additional short notice response capability wherever it might be needed. Whilst some of the teams will come from the Home Counties - including Essex, Kent, Sussex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire as well as London itself – others will be located in Avon, Nottinghamshire, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Greater Manchester.
Bristol was approached by all these fire & rescue services and has offered to supply bespoke EN 469:2005 Level 2 PPE to meet their needs which, in total, will require around 500 sets of new garments. Based on Bristol’s Ergotech Action™ style, the kit will be a combination of outershell fabrics including PBI Gold, Kermel and Nomex Hainsworth Titan incorporating a Gore Airlock moisture barrier. The PPE has all been ordered within the last month and is required for delivery by the end of June.
Commenting on Bristol’s success in securing these orders, Philip Tasker, National Sales Manager, said, “Given the tight delivery schedules demanded, which in most cases was under 10 weeks, we were only able to respond positively, and guarantee delivery of the garments, as a result of our production resilience and UK-based manufacturing resources. Our policy of maintaining good fabric stock levels, both outer fabrics and moisture barriers, when combined with the in-built flexibility we have in controlling production schedules to respond to unexpected changes in demand, has enabled us to manufacture the bespoke garments within the limited lead time available. We expect to be shipping out the completed consignments from the middle of June onwards”.