Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young says Point Fortin will get a new fire sta­tion but with no date giv­en for the start of the project, the di­lap­i­dat­ed bun­ga­low at Clifton Hill where the of­fi­cers are housed at present will be up­grad­ed.

Young’s vis­it to the tem­po­rary fa­cil­i­ty hous­ing the Point Fortin Fire Sta­tion and the pro­posed site for the new sta­tion comes four days af­ter the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA) joined Point Fortin fire of­fi­cers and mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty in a protest for the con­struc­tion of new fa­cil­i­ties.

The as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent Leo Ramkissoon con­tent­ed that the high­ly in­dus­tri­alised bor­ough was at risk as the of­fi­cers were not ful­ly equipped to deal with a dis­as­ter.

But in speak­ing to the me­dia at the Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex on Tues­day, Young made it clear that his vis­it had noth­ing to do with the protest and had been sched­uled be­fore with his pre­de­ces­sor, Point Fortin MP Ed­mund Dil­lon to get a first-hand view of the fa­cil­i­ties.

Hav­ing seen the tem­po­rary fa­cil­i­ties, Young said that the of­fi­cers are in need of re­lief and thanked them for work­ing through the con­di­tions.

He said an­oth­er op­tion was to de­mol­ish the old fire sta­tion and put a tem­po­rary fa­cil­i­ty there.

“In the in­ter­im, I want to bring some re­lief to the men and women in the fire ser­vice who are serv­ing in Point Fortin as quick­ly as pos­si­ble. I think the quick­est re­lief would be to ini­tial­ly up­grade where they are right now,” the min­is­ter said.

In 2016, Dil­lon promised that a new fire sta­tion would have be­gun in 2017 at a cost of $11 mil­li­on. In 2017, the con­di­tions wors­ened and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) shut down the build­ing, deem­ing it un­safe. The of­fi­cers were moved to the bun­ga­low from the Tex­a­co Oil Com­pa­ny days, which they said was al­so un­safe.

Young said the process to ac­quire land for the new sta­tion was near com­ple­tion and the plans for the build­ing were al­most close to com­ple­tion.

Re­spond­ing to Ce­dros res­i­dents’ clam­our for a fire sta­tion in their com­mu­ni­ty, Young said that giv­en the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial prob­lems, he could not make any promis­es. He said Dil­lon had al­ready brought the sug­ges­tion to the gov­ern­ment, who in turn was ex­am­in­ing the use of fire guardians and war­dens.

How­ev­er, Ce­dros coun­cil­lor Shankar Teelucks­ingh said the fire ten­ders that were used by Petrotrin have been hand­ed over to the fire ser­vice. He said un­til a sta­tion can be built in the com­mu­ni­ty, a fire ten­der and am­bu­lance should be sta­tioned at the se­cu­ri­ty com­plex as res­i­dents of­ten have to wait a long time for help to come from Point Fortin.

He al­so viewed the con­di­tions at the Ce­dros Se­cu­ri­ty Com­plex which hous­es the Ce­dros Po­lice Sta­tion, Coast Guard, Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion. He said that he would look at the ad­di­tion­al work that can be done and as­sess the cost to see how best the fa­cil­i­ty can be up­grad­ed.