Estates Team Mission
Our mission is to create a forward thinking estate that prioritises wellbeing, safety and sustainability through maximising use of space and cost effective solutions. We are committed to fostering collaboration, supporting our community and delivering compliant services that meets the needs of our Service.
Estates Team Vision
We provide a safe and inclusive built environment designed to meet the needs of our staff and communities by future proofing our infrastructure in an environmentally compliant and sustainable way. We will provide best value and innovative facilities while embracing our social responsibilities.
Introduction
The Avon Fire & Rescue Service (AF&RS) estate plays a critical role in enabling the Service to deliver its statutory duties effectively. This strategy sets out the arrangements and approach in place to manage Avon Fire & Rescue Services’ estates assets, between 2025 and 2029. The strategy also aligns to the AF&RS Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) 2024-2028 while allowing time once the next CRMP is released to incorporate any necessary changes into the next CRMP.
Section one, explores the existing estate profile and provides context.
Section two, provides the strategy to be enacted between April 2025 and March 2029, the strategy is broken down into focus areas and includes both direct actions to be taken as well as guiding principles that will help guide the team in dealing with any arising issues that are not known at the time of writing the strategy.
CRMP link
The Estates Strategy will be re-aligned to the CRMP dates. This strategy will run from 2025 to 2029. Allowing for the production of the next strategy within one year of the commencement of the Service’s next CRMP.
The strategy outlined within this document aligns with the current 2024 – 2028 CRMP. Whilst the CRMP references making the most of our premises under the improving our service section, the estate can predominantly be seen as an enabler to the CRMP, in support of the six key areas of focus.
- Our estate will ensure that the right Place and the right Space are provided to support our prevention and protection activities at the key locations from which they operate.
- Our focus on risk management and efficiency in operation will ensure that our sites are prepared to support our response activities, from managing contaminant risk, to ensuring the sites operate as expected when operationally responding.
- Our focus on risk and efficiency will also support the Service in being more resilient, ensuring our impact on the environment is minimised, while being prepared to continue to serve our communities during the most significant incidents.
- Our focus on efficiency in operation will ensure we continue to improve the Service we deliver, while maximising value for money.
- While our focus on Right Place, Right Space will continue to bring wellbeing and productivity benefits as we continue to invest in our staff.
AF&RS has also declared a Net Zero Carbon target by 2030, with a suite of environmental commitments including sustainable estate practices, renewable energy, all underpinned by an Environmental Management System operated in line with the ISO14001 standard.
Section 1: Our Estate Overview
Avon Fire & Rescue Service operates from 25 sites including 21 Fire Stations (made up of 9 Whole Time and 12 On Call including Yate), Control Facility, Fleet and Technical Services workshops, a combined Fire & Police Headquarters, and Joint Training Centre (JTC) with neighbouring Fire and Rescue Services.
The ownership make-up of the estate is 23 freehold sites, 1 leasehold, 1 freehold subject to Private Finance Initiative (PFI).
The value of the estate as of April 2025 is estimated to be £61.1M (excluding HQ as this is leased, and JTC as it is under a PFI agreement).
Scale of the estate
The estate comprises a gross internal floor area of 19,512 sqm, excluding JTC and HQ.
Estate age
The age of the estate is summarised in the table below, ages have been adjusted where significant transformative refurbishments have been undertaken.
| Decade of construction | Number of sites |
|---|---|
| 1880-1890 | 1 |
| 1930-1940 | 1 |
| 1950-1960 | 3 |
| 1960-1970 | 7 |
| 1970-1980 | 4 |
| 1980-1990 | 1 |
| 1990-2000 | 2 |
| 2000-2010 | 2 |
| 2010-2020 | 2 |
| 2020-2030 | 1 |
Condition data
Condition surveys were undertaken in early 2024, each site was assigned a grading based on the condition of the buildings at the time of survey. The gradings were distributed as follows in the table below. Data excludes Headquarters.
| Condition grading | Number of sites |
|---|---|
| A – Good | 0 |
| B – Satisfactory | 10 |
| C – Poor | 13 |
| D – Bad | 1 |
As shown, the majority of our sites in 2024 were rated as C or below. The condition surveys identified a backlog maintenance value of £2.9m, with a projected planned future maintenance cost of £8m. The Estates Strategy aims to identify from the data which planned maintenance is deemed as required and to plan the residual actions to be delivered within the revenue budgets available.
Running costs
The annual revenue estates operation cost in the 2024-2025 financial year was £2.6m, inclusive of utility costs, business rates, and rent. Of the total budget £682k was apportioned to maintenance costs, or £35 per square meter. It is hoped within the cycle of this Estates Strategy that benchmarking will be possible against comparative fire Services, but this data is not yet fully available.
The table below shows the breakdown of spend.
| Cost category | Cost |
|---|---|
| Business rates | £809,029 |
| Electricity | £476,215 |
| Response maintenance | £347,000 |
| Rent | £267,119 |
| Planned maintenance | £208,298 |
| Gas | £170,572 |
| Professional fees | £100,488 |
| Insurance of premises | £66,417 |
| Water services | £35,157 |
| Travel | £9,175 |
Estate Summary
The AF&RS estate is made up of buildings that are typically over 40 years old, without significant refurbishment.
The overall condition of the estate has been in steady decline resulting in the majority of sites scoring below satisfactory in the most recent condition surveys. The current capital programme includes projects to address the condition of the worst assets identified within the condition surveys by the end of 2027. However the condition of the remaining assets below satisfactory must be planned to be addressed within this strategy cycle.
The present processes employed by the Estates Team remain manually driven, creating resource challenges and supplier management more difficult. Within this estates cycle, the processes must be addressed to provide a more efficient operation of the estate and provide greater assurance and oversight, enabling the team to be more proactive in mitigating condition issues before they arise. This will greatly enhance the team’s ability to stretch the useable life span of the estate assets, providing greater value for money.
Achievements
Within the last 10 years the Service has invested significant capital funding into replacing a number of stations, to address significant condition and operational issues. This has included, Hicks Gate Fire Station (completed 2015), the new Temple Fire Station (completed 2016), Nailsea Police and Fire Station (completed 2018), Avonmouth Fire Station (completed 2020), and the major refurbishment of Bedminster Fire Station (completed 2024).
AF&RS has also continued to focus on decarbonisation, reducing energy demand, and increasing the energy production capabilities of the estate. The investments in this area have included:
- LED lighting and controls.
- Heating and hot water systems, with a focus on installation of Air Source Heat Pumps.
- Expansion of electric vehicle charging.
- Solar generation (13% of total energy usage in the 24/25 FY).
- Renewable electricity and gas supply procurements .
AF&RS has reduced its carbon emissions by 55% since the 2019/20 baseline.
Section 2: Estate Strategy
This section of the strategy will outline the actions and guiding principles that the Estates Team will act upon for the duration of this strategy.
Guiding principles
The following are the guiding principles that will guide the Estates Team for the duration of this strategy. While the future of the estate is ultimately driven by the demands of our operations and prevention activities, these will be the core principles that shape each decision and action taken by the team.
Risk Management
Risk Management will be at the heart of all of the actions that the Estates Team takes, given the statutory landscape and the inherent risks to health and safety present in buildings and the systems within them.
By 2029 the Estates Team will, have a clear understanding of the risk landscape across the whole estate, with each site holding a rating against a number of indicators, resulting in an overall score for each site. The ratings will be underpinned by an actionable risk register.
The key focuses of this principle will be:
- Prioritisation – of reported faults and issues from end users.
- Condition – ensuring condition improvements are targeted at mitigating risks.
- Security – that all actions ensure the security of the estate are enhanced and risks mitigated.
- Compliance – that the team focus on providing assurance that the estate is compliant with all legislative requirements to protect the health and safety of all the estates end users. The team must also focus on the emerging issues of contaminant management .
- Resilience – Our estate must be capable of remaining resilient in the face of all challenges, from local and national emergencies, to the challenges of climate change.
Right Place, Right Space
Right Place, Right Space, will guide the team in ensuring that the estate facilitates the needs of its end users, providing a diverse range of opportunities to meet their unique needs.
By 2029 the Estates Team will have provided to staff across AF&RS, a clear understanding of what places and spaces are available to them, to support their work. Alongside undertaking a range of improvement works to make the spaces more suitable and fit for purpose.
- Geographic dispersal – That the team ensure spaces are available for a variety of needs both operationally and corporately across the geographically dispersed estate.
- Condition – the team will ensure that the spaces provided are appropriately prepared and in good condition for their use by the end users.
- Reporting and enquiries – hand in hand with ensuring the spaces are of the appropriate condition the team will ensure that end users can report issues efficiently and receive accurate information promptly when enquiries are made. In turn this will drive efficiencies in our response to issues as they arise .
Efficiency in operation
By 2029 the Estates Team will have undertaken a range of behaviour campaigns to support more effective operation of the estate, alongside establishing methods of measuring more closely the efficiency of use and KPI’s against which sites can be monitored and managed.
Efficiency in operation will guide our decision making process to ensure that we are operating our estate at its most efficient, this will embody:
- Behaviours – ensuring staff behaviours support efficiency in operation, focusing on efficient energy usage, avoidance of damage and efficient issue resolution.
- Space utilisation – ensuring our assets are used to high utilisation levels.
- Decarbonisation/energy production – maximising opportunities across our estate to heat our spaces efficiently and produce as much energy as possible.
- Data – ensuring that the team gather and maintain accurate data across the estate to support efficient and effective decision making.
- Collaboration/partnership – we will ensure we explore opportunities to collaborate and partner strategically where there are opportunities to secure more efficient and effective ways of working, alongside any opportunities to generate income or recover operating costs.
Proposed actions
Within the duration of this strategy the following actions are proposed to be undertaken in support of meeting the requirements and principles of this strategy.
Capital programme
The capital programme is central to improving the efficiency of the estate’s operation, addressing risks in the form of legislative issues and condition deficiencies.
During the strategy period the following projects will be undertaken:
- The re-build of Bath Fire Station.
- The refurbishment or re-build of Weston-Super-Mare Fire Station.
- The completion of the first phase of the on-call improvement programme.
- The completion of heat decarbonisation projects.
- The repair or replacement of Hicks Gate Training Villa, and future planning for facilities.
- The takeover of Severn Park.
- The onward planning of on-call estates improvements.
The above projects will all contribute to the three guiding principles of the strategy.
CAFM/IWMS procurement
To centralise the estates systems, cleanse and improve the data available to the team, a new estates management system will be procured. This will either be a Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM) or Integrated Workplace Management System (IWMS).
Additionally the system will provide more automated processes for retrieving information and reporting issues for our end users. For the estates team there will then be greater ability to track and interrogate supply chain performance.
The efficiency that this tool will deliver will result in the team being able to change the approach to facilities management, utilising the time freed up from manual processes to carry out site audits and work inspections.
Alongside the implementation of the tool there will be a number of new processes developed within the team, such as a triaging process, this process will allocate ratings to each reported issue, ensuring that the most urgent issues are dealt with as a priority, whilst lower grade issues may be resolved as groups to maximise the value of sending resource to deal with the issue.
Asset management plans
The lifecycle of built assets extends into decades. As such the needs of individual buildings are challenging to capture within strategies as strategies typically have a 5-10 year outlook.
The Estates Team will begin producing asset management plans for each of the Service’s buildings. The purpose of the asset management plan is to capture the intervention cycle of each building, over a twenty five year period. The management plan will tell the team what intervention is likely to be required in each year, while each strategy will inform the team of how those interventions should be undertaken, and what principles should be applied.
This will enable the team to operate more effectively and efficiently, planning for the future and prioritising interventions with a risk-based approach.
Annual Delivery Plans
Conversely to the asset management plans long term view, the Delivery Plan will be produced at the start of each financial year within the strategy. The Delivery Plan will set out the teams aims for the coming year, it will draw upon the metrics made available by the new estates management system to target interventions effectively. It will also provide clarity to the Service on where the Estates Team resource will be committed within the year.
Redecorations programme
Planning will also commence to bring together a cyclical redecorations programme. The purpose of the programme is to ensure all of the Service’s buildings are redecorated on a regular and equal basis. This contributes to the workplace culture in multiple ways, while also ensuring that there is a programme of ensuring minor repairs are regularly picked up which can assist in avoiding minor issues becoming larger, more costly ones.
This programme will also contribute significantly to the right place, right space principle as more of the Service’s sites are brought onto the room and desk booking system.
Estate decarbonisation
In mid-2025 a heat decarbonisation plan was produced. The report shall be used to begin prioritising the teams focus on the improvements that will help reduce the Services energy demand, increase the Services energy production and decrease the Services impact on the environment.
Once the results have been interpreted a programme of works shall be produced to act on the recommendations, some of which may fall into the asset management plans if the interventions are not recommended in the immediate future.
This work stream will ensure the Service optimises the efficiency of our sites to reduce operating costs and maximise opportunities for revenue recovery.
Reviews and investigations
As early as possible within the strategy’s period, a number of reviews and investigations will be required to continue to guide the teams focus and ensure that opportunities to undertake interventions are combined where possible to drive efficiency. The reviews are likely to be:
- Security reviews and rating of each site.
- Strategic storage and logistics review.
- Training facilities review.
- Space utilisation surveys.
- Property standardisation production.
Opportunities
The Estates Team will remain open to opportunities to further improve revenue generation and efficiency improvements, such as:
- Leasing opportunities.
- Rationalisation opportunities.
- Collaboration and space sharing.
- Multiservice co-location schemes.
Measures of success
In 2029 the Estates Team will bring together the data generated during this strategies span, to provide an overview of the impact that the initiatives within this strategy have had these will include:
- % of energy used generated on the estate.
- Number of reactive call out closed on the first visit.
- Number of desk and room bookings across the years available .
- Comparative data on energy usage from 2025 to the end of the strategy.
- Compliance assurance data.
- Amount of decarbonisation projects successfully implemented.
There will also be a number of qualitative questions to provide answers to such as whether an estates management system was implemented, whether the redecorations programme has been initiated, and whether the Annual Delivery Plans have been effectively implemented.
In 2029 new condition surveys will also be undertaken to measure the change in condition ratings and ensure that any unexpected deterioration is re-planned into the asset management plans, and helps to formulate the next strategy.
Governance and monitoring
The Estates Team will continually report on the progress of actions resulting from the strategy in several different ways.
Capital projects will continue to be reported upon at Capital Steering Group, and the Policy and Resources Committee as required.
Progress against items relating to the environment will be reported upon to the Environmental Management Group, and subsequently PRC through the annual Environment report.
The items relating to security grading and improvement will be reported on at the Services Security Working Group.
The Corporate Risks for which the Estates Team are responsible will all be positively impacted upon by this strategy, reporting of which will be directly to Senior Leadership Team throughout the year, as well as to AGOC through the full Corporate Risk Register reports.
Additionally, a review of progress against this strategy will be produced ahead of the next strategy being produced to help guide its production, and to also report back to SLT and the Authority what progress was achieved, and challenges, and any lessons learned.