Cheshire West and Chester
Cheshire West and Chester (CW&C) has a population of around 330,000 and an area of 350 square miles.
The Borough includes the historic City of Chester, the industrial and market towns of Ellesmere Port, Northwich, and Winsford, together with Neston, Frodsham, Helsby and Malpas. A third of Cheshire West & Chester's population live in the rural wards.
CW&C has a complex mixture of risks including major petro-chemical and nuclear industry, a national heritage site (Chester City), numerous Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) most notably the Marshes of the South Mersey, Dee Estuary at Burton and Parkgate and Ince. In addition, Delamere Forest is a Forestry Commission park, attracting many visitors.
CW&C also has a major transport infrastructure including motorways, railways, and a shipping canal and is on the flight paths for three airports. The conflict between industry and nature is a difficult balance, and our pre-planning for incident response has to consider the impact on both the natural and built environments. In 2009, there were 195 people killed or seriously injured on CW&C roads.
The Service continues to work in partnership, to educate, enforce and re-engineer highways to reduce such incidents, focusing on the six designated 'Red Routes' and intelligence led initiatives. Around 18% of CW&C's population is aged 65 or above (higher than the England average of 16%).
Population forecasts suggest that the number of older people in this age group could increase by 28% by 2017, which equates to an additional 15,800 older persons in this potentially vulnerable group. Accidental fires in the home continue to be a key issue, especially with an ageing population.
However, through our community educational and Home Safety Assessment programmes, a significant reduction in such incidents has been achieved (29% reduction in comparison to 2007).
The table below shows Key Statistics from the Cheshire West and Chester Area between 2007 and 2010, such as Deliberate primary fires, Deliberate secondary fires, Primary fires, Fatalities from primary fires and Non-fatal casualties.
Key statistics |
2007/2008 |
2008/2009 |
2009/2010 |
|
Deliberate primary fires per 10,000 pop |
9.97 |
7.76 |
7.79 |
|
Deliberate secondary fires per 10,000 |
21.45 |
27.46 |
22.82 |
|
Primary fires per 100,000 |
231.64 |
177.42 |
187.46 |
|
Fatalities from primary fires per 100,000 |
0.30 |
0.61 |
0.00 |
|
Non-fatal casualties per 100,000 |
6.71 |
1.52 |
4.26 |
Stations in Cheshire West and Chester
