AFRS-New-Dimension-vehicles-at-Temple-fire-station

The New Dimension programme, sometimes referred to as the New Dimension or New Dimensions, was started by the

Department for Communities and Local Government The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), formerly the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), is a department of His Majesty's Government responsible for housing, communities, local government ...

in the UK, for fire and rescue services in England and Wales, following the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

in the United States. It has provided equipment, training and standardised procedures to deal with terrorist attacks and major environmental disasters. By July 2004, the New Dimension programme had provided £56 million to various projects; a further £132 million was promised for the period up to 2007. The New Dimension programme operates at a national, regional and local level, and while it does not apply specifically to Scotland, a Fire and Rescue Service circular, published in 2007 noted that: "Officials in the Welsh Assembly Government and the Scottish Executive agree in principle that the general terms of the Mutual Aid Protocol should apply 'cross-border' between Scotland, England (and Wales)." New Dimension provides a co-ordinated approach across the emergency services, and

local authority Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

emergency planners and it has been supported and promoted by the

Chief Fire Officers Association The Chief Fire Officers Association (CFOA) is the professional body representing senior fire officers in the United Kingdom. The organisation used to be known as the Chief and Assistant Chief Fire Officers Association, it was formed in 1974 follo ...

. In 2015, the Conservative government announced that a third of the vehicles allocated to the programme were to be withdrawn in 2016.

Programme scope

The New Dimension programme was part of Department for Communities and Local Government's fire resilience programme, which also included the

FireLink Firelink or FireLink is a Wide area network, wide area radio system in England, Wales, and Scotland for Fire service in the UK, fire services. The system which supports both voice and data communication was designed to replace a patchwork of analog ...

and

FiReControl FiReControl was a project, initiated in the United Kingdom in March 2004, to reduce the number of control rooms used to handle emergency calls for fire services and authorities. Presently there are 46 control rooms in England that handle calls fr ...

projects. 318 New Dimension appliances, 238 of these being prime movers with removeable 'pods' and the remaining 80 being Incident Response Units equipped for decontamination, were supplied by Marshall Specialist Vehicles on

MAN TGA The MAN TG-range is a series of trucks produced since 1999 by the German vehicle manufacturer MAN Truck & Bus. It is the successor to the F2000, L2000, and M2000 series. It consists of the TGA (now discontinued), TGL, TGM, TGS, and TGX. The TG ...

chassis. These were equipped with FireLink digital radios on delivery, creating a single wide area communications system across England, Wales and Scotland. The purpose of New Dimension is to provide information and guidance for fire and rescue services on emergency response to the following specific types of incident: * Terrorist

chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear defence (CBRN defence) are protective measures taken in situations in which chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear warfare (including terrorism) hazards may be present. CBRN defence consist ...

(CBRN) threats * Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear incidents * Industrial and domestic accidents * Chemical spills and collapsed buildings * Natural disasters * Floods and earthquakes The onus is on fire services to provide "New Dimension capability", and legislation for England, passed in April 2007, recognised a fire and rescue service's responsibilities for dealing with the above types of incident. The Fire and Rescue Services (Emergencies) (England) Order 2007 is a

statutory instrument In many countries, a statutory instrument is a form of delegated legislation. United Kingdom Statutory instruments are the principal form of delegated or secondary legislation in the United Kingdom. National government Statutory instrument ...

which requires that fire services make provision for dealing with CBRN incidents and structural collapse. Funding from the New Dimension scheme has been used (as one example) to provide fire services with new specialist

Urban Search and Rescue Urban search and rescue (abbreviated as USAR or US&R) is a type of technical rescue operation that involves the location, extrication, and initial medical stabilization of victims trapped in an urban area, namely structural collapse due to natu ...

appliances and equipment. Previously, fire services were not specifically equipped to deal with largescale USAR incidents. Vehicles part of New Dimension until scrapped in 2016: *Incident Response Unit *Detection, Identification, Monitoring *Prime Mover to carry pods *Urban Search and Rescue pod *High Volume Pump pod

Operational use

New Dimension appliances have been used in a number of roles since the scheme's creation. Notable uses include various floods such as the

2007 United Kingdom floods A series of large floods occurred in parts of the United Kingdom during the summer of 2007. The worst of the flooding occurred across Scotland on 14 June; East Yorkshire and the Midlands on 15 June; Yorkshire, the Midlands, Gloucestershire, Here ...

, the

Buncefield fire The Buncefield fire was a major fire at an oil storage facility that started on 11 December 2005 at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal, located near the M1 motorway, Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, England. The terminal was the fifth ...

, the

Stockline Plastics factory explosion On 11 May 2004, the ICL Plastics factory (commonly referred to as Stockline Plastics factory), in the Woodside district of Maryhill, Glasgow in western Scotland, exploded. Nine people were killed, including two company directors, and 33 injured, ...

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

and the

7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...

References

{{UK fire service Emergency management in the United Kingdom