New fire service training centre opens in Cookstown

A long-delayed state-of-the-art training college for the fire service in Northern Ireland is to officially open at a ceremony on Wednesday.

The facility just outside Cookstown was first announced more than 20 years ago.

The initial plan was for a larger training college that included the police and prison service.

But in 2015 plans for the college were radically redrawn and in 2021 planning permission was granted for a £42m facility that catered for the Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service (NIFRS) only.

Both the prison service and the police were instead given extra money for training and to refurbish existing facilities.

The Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service Learning & Development College (LDC) at Desertcreat includes a flood water rescue facility, a call-out village, a training warehouse, a barn and slurry pit and a tactical firefighting facility.

An official opening ceremony for the college is taking place on Wednesday morning.

This includes firefighter demonstrations at various locations across the site.

NIFRS say the facilities will enable firefighters to simulate real-life training scenarios and provide a “safe, controlled and repeatable environment for high-quality, practical training”.

The site was granted planning approval by Mid Ulster District Council in 2021.

It represented the largest capital investment in NIFRS’ history.

Proposals for the site at Desertcreat have been dogged by problems since the Policing Board announced in February 2004 that a £80m police training college for Northern Ireland would be built there.

Although planning permission was granted in 2005 for a state-of-the art college, it was later reported the same year that the new academy would cost £50m more than expected and would not be completed until 2009.

In February 2007, the government announced it planned to provide all the funding for a new joint police, fire and prison service college at the 210-acre site.

Planning permission was granted for the training centre in 2013, but in November 2014 a steering group overseeing the development said the project should not continue.

The scheme was subsequently scrapped and it later emerged that Northern Ireland had lost £53m of public money that had been earmarked for the joint training college, with a Stormont committee being told the Treasury had withdrawn the funding.

Plans for the college were radically redrawn.

It was announced the fire and rescue service would get a £44m purpose-built complex at Desertcreat, while the PSNI would be given about £20m to refurbish its existing training facilities in east Belfast.

The prison service instead received funding for training at Maghaberry and Magilligan prisons.