TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY

Projects
TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY

Liverpool, UK

RLB’s cost management expertise was integral to the delivery of a new £40m training and development academy for Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service (MFRS).

The state-of-the-art facility, the UK’s most technologically advanced emergency service training site, will equip Merseyside’s firefighters with the skills and knowledge they need to save life and property in a range of fire and rescue scenarios.
The site in Long Lane, Aintree, will enable MFRS to simulate a range of incidents, exponentially improving its ability to train crews against foreseeable risks and emerging threats in conditions as close to real life as possible.

At a glance

Client
Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service
Services
Commercial Success, Contract Administration and Employer’s Agent
sector
Public & Civic
Location
Liverpool, England

Immersive training facilities

Immersive training zones include a row of terraced houses, motorway and rail settings, a rubble pile, a hazardous materials rig, specialist vehicle garages, and a high-volume pump area. There is also a six-storey high-rise building, making the facility the first of its kind in the country where new recruits and serving firefighters can train at height in a realistic way. A suite of classrooms and a purpose-built command and control centre provide additional facilities for learning and skills development.

Besides the academy, the site is home to an operational four-bay fire and rescue station, and the National Resilience Centre of Excellence. This will coordinate the national response from fire and rescue services to natural disasters and conflicts worldwide, while providing firefighters with the expertise needed to respond to large-scale humanitarian incidents.

“Having provided cost management and employer’s agent services for MFRS for over a decade, it has genuinely been an honour to be involved in this scheme. The facility we have collectively created not only seeks to provide national resilience and local protection to the community it serves, but it also gives firefighters the opportunity to train in a realistic way. After all, it is they who step forward into a dangerous situation when we are all asked to evacuate.”

Stuart Wands, Lead Cost Management Partner for North West, Northern Ireland and Scotland, RLB

Relevant sector expertise

This development is the latest and largest in a series of modernisation projects that RLB has delivered for MFRS, which includes new stations in Prescot and St Helens. Bringing together a diverse range of blue light training facilities within a single site required experience of delivering projects for the emergency services. We understood the scheme’s requirements and financial pressures and were able to apply our expertise to ensure the complex project was completed within its 18-month timescale.

“Our new training and development academy was an ambitious and challenging construction project but was delivered successfully thanks to the professionalism and expertise of RLB. We have worked with RLB for more than a decade now and their support has been invaluable in the modernisation of our facilities.”

Stewart Woods, Head of Estates, Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service

Cost and supply challenges

Our team had to overcome considerable challenges to deliver the new academy. The project inception and feasibility stages were carried out under the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic. Budget control and management was made difficult by global economic and market shocks, and the Suez Canal blockage and the war in Ukraine caused procurement issues at critical moments. Our experience enabled us to navigate MFRS through all the budgetary changes and supply chain disruptions.