The Area
The geographical area served by Sunderland South Community Fire Station varies greatly from former mining community residential villages to large pre/post war council estates, and light and heavy industrial. It also includes a new business development site adjacent to the station, which when complete in two years will materially alter the fire risk profile in the station area.
The population, based on the 2001 Census, is 37,706 persons who are predominantly from Anglo-Saxon background (98%) with a relatively small ethnic group (2%). There are 16,379 dwellings within the Station area with approximately: -
Single parent families occupy 6.7% of dwelling, with 15.9% single pensioner households.
Levels of unemployment across this area vary from 11.2% for males and 6.6% for females. These figures reflect the wide variety of socio-economic groups residing within individual neighbourhoods, which can be linked to the risk of dwelling fires occurring within the area. This is illustrated in the above map of the station area (the red indicates areas where the risk of having a dwelling fire is well above average, orange is above average, yellow is average, blue is below average and green is well below average).
During 2005/09, the Sunderland Housing Group will be refurbishing 1500 homes in the Rainton Bridge station catchment area. This refurbishment will include the fitting of hard-wired smoke alarms, which should, when the refurbishment is completed reduce the risk from fire in the estates currently in the high-risk areas.
