Group Commander Sandy Gillespie – Scottish Fire and Rescue

Senior Vice-President Charles welcomed everyone to the meeting, introducing tonight’s

speaker, Group Commander Sandy Gillespie from the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service.

In commencing his address, Sandy stated that, similar to the Police Service, there was now one overall Fire and Rescue Service in Scotland, divided into three service delivery areas – North, West and East Scotland. North Lanarkshire, in the West area, has seven community fire & rescue stations.  He explained the functions performed by these stations – firefighting; heavy rescue; attending road traffic collisions; mass decontamination; flood response and water rescue; dealing with hazardous materials; safe working at heights/rope rescue; humanitarian services e.g. attending attempted suicides or sudden illness; carrying out urban search and rescue.

He informed the meeting of the specialist resources available to the Fire and Rescue Service to enable them to carry out their job.  Among these were – a large Forward Control Unit vehicle that enabled decision making on site; motor boats for inland water rescue and flood response; mobile cranes that enabled safe working at heights.  He highlighted the urban search and rescue function and mentioned the Service’s involvement in the Clutha Bar disaster and the fire at the Glasgow School of Art. An important function in these cases was to shore up the properties, allowing safe rescue of people and, sadly, body recovery. In the case of the Glasgow School of Art, valuable artwork had to be recovered.

The mass decontamination unit, based at Coatbridge, could be called upon in the event of a major incident caused, for example, by terrorism.  The unit is capable of showering and brushing 200 people an hour. Thankfully the unit has not been called into action.

Community safety is a top priority of the Service and Sandy highlighted the main cases of fires in the home – cooking, electrical and smoking. There has been a reduction in the incidences of accidental dwelling fires over the years and North Lanarkshire has one of the best records in community safety.

After Sandy answered a good number of questions, Willie Talbot proposed the vote of thanks appreciating Sandy’s very interesting and wide-ranging presentation.

Willie Talbot reported that the bonus ball was another roll-over. He reported that he had completed his review of the Bonus Ball and Numbers Club to the year ending 31^st March and had passed the financial figures to Treasurer Tom.  Willie will inform individual members of debit/credit positions and those in credit will receive payment. 

Following on from his report, last week, Secretary Ian confirmed that, shortly, the Club will be required to cast its vote on whether or not to agree to the District Team entering into formal discussions with District 1230, with a view to D1020 and D1230 merging to form a new District (Central and Southern Scotland), effective as of July 2022.  It was agreed that the members would decide the Club’s vote at next week’s meeting.