Now in my second year as District Commander for Leeds, I continue to be proud to oversee such a diverse district in terms of risk, staff, and community. I observe how all staff within the district are striving daily with professionalism, passion, and dedication to make the community of Leeds safer. We ensure a well-trained, prepared workforce can provide an effective response to an array of challenging emergencies.
Community engagement and involvement is a continued focus within Leeds, and we will focus on our objective to support the most marginalised communities and identify our most vulnerable community members. We will continue to seek to reduce the foreseeable risk within Leeds and ensure our staff are trained to the highest level and have the best equipment and resources available to deal with any eventuality. We will look to respond to support our community in the safest, most efficient, effective way.
The built environment will be a focus within Leeds matched with an intelligence-driven approach encompassing existing building risk and proposed future building developments. Reduced anti-social behaviour resulting in nuisance fires will be a key focus working in close partnership with West Yorkshire Police and Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Teams to prevent these fires.
In addition to this, we need to change how we deliver services in line with the findings from the inquiries into the Grenfell Tower fire and the Manchester Arena attack, as well as the recommendations from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS) inspection of West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.
The District Plan seeks to build on the success of previous years and to strive to improve our service further through the delivery of our priorities and how we will continue to prevent, protect, and respond both efficiently, and effectively with resilience to meet the needs of the community of Leeds and West Yorkshire.
