91原创 Township is planning to build a new, larger firehall for Brookswood, but the old neighbourhood firehall may be put to a new use as a firefighter training centre.

On Monday, Sept. 25, Township council voted unanimously to spend up to $150,000 to study whether the Township鈥檚 training facility for firefighters could be moved from Murrayville to the old firehall site on 32nd Avenue.

The current training facility is on land that is part of the Township鈥檚 Operations Centre near 224th Street.

But the Ops Centre has been bursting at the seams for several years as the Township has grown. Township work crews need more room for parking large equipment like trucks, and even for staff parking.

Meanwhile, the Township council has already started plans to build a new, modern firehall on the Horne Pit site on 200th Street to serve a growing Brookswood area.

Turning the old Brookswood firehall site into a new training site would make use of the old firehall land 鈥� which is owned by the provincial government 鈥� while freeing up space for the Ops Centre, said Councillor Tim Baillie, a former firefighter.

Baillie said he鈥檚 already been approached by two other municipal fire departments about renting a future fire training centre at the Brookswood site.

鈥淭his will be a revenue generation thing, and it will increase the ability of our firefighters to do much more specific training, both inside and outside,鈥� Baillie said.

Building a new training centre from scratch could cost as much as $30 to $40 million, Baillie said. Township fire chief Jason de Roy said he was aware of centres that cost as much as $50 million. It鈥檚 hoped that relocating will be considerably cheaper.

According to a Township report, moving to Brookswood would allow the Township to relocate much of its training equipment, and rebuild a fire tower.

However, moving the fire training centre won鈥檛 solve the problem of lack of space for the Operations Centre entirely, said Township administrator Mark Bakken.

鈥淚t will assist, but it won鈥檛 be enough in the long run,鈥� Bakken said.

In the long term, the Township still needs to establish a 鈥渟atellite鈥� operations yard somewhere else in the Township to handle the growing population.

The Township鈥檚 population is estimated to be around 150,000 people now, and will reach 211,000 by 2041, according to a staff report.

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