A new state of the art tri-service community fire station has been officially opened today serving all areas throughout the Royal Borough.

The new Theale fire station which begun operation in October 2021 followed the rebuild of Crowthorne fire station in 2020.

Joining The Lord-Lieutenant in the opening ceremony were Councillor Paul Gittings, Chair Royal Berkshire Fire Authority, Matthew Barber, Police and Crime Commissioner for Thames Valley, Kirsten Willis-Drewett, Head of Operations South Central Ambulance Service, and Wayne Bowcock, Chief Fire Officer Royal Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Matthew Barber, the Police and Crime commissioner said: “It’s a great project bringing together all the emergency services on time and on budget, delivering some savings for the public purse which we can re-invest in the front line, but also making sure that the public are safe and getting better response times for fire, police and ambulance”

“There’s incredibly strong relationships all the way through, from fire-fighters, police officers and paramedics on the ground who will deal with emergencies day-in-day-out, all the way through to the senior government so I think that’s incredibly valuable.

“It doesn’t exist in every part of the country and I’m really pleased at that collaboration of work.

“We are doing so much to save money, to make the emergency services more effective and to ensure that our communities are safe.”

Officials from across Bracknell attended the opening today to tour the building which has updated facilities for emergency services and has also taken into consideration the sustainable footprint.

The Mayor of Bracknell Forest, Ankur Shiv Bhandari said: “The facility is absolutely brilliant. We’re talking about the tri-services coming together.

“We’ve done that with Crowthorne and Hungerford so I think this the right way forward. We are able to use the resources we have in the best way possible in the service of our community and what a fantastic station this is.

“It’s not only the facilities it is the whole power of emergency services coming together in the service of the community.”

Although situated in Theale, firefighters from West Berkshire are also called as far as Bracknell Forest to assist local fire crew with the most serious of incidents.

Ankur said: “We are very very proud of them, and we are very humbled and grateful that we have them in terms of helping to provide the right services to out community.

“We are really honoured and thankful for the service that they provide.”

"The way these stations are coming together to help the areas around the whole of Berkshire. It is about efficiency, it is about good response time and untimately about our residents getting the services as soon as possible."