Safety Zone Project in Ashfield attracts more than 1,100 schoolchildren

Pupils from Mapplewells Primary School at the Safety Zone Project at Ashfield Fire Station.

Interactive workshops on fire, road safety, and developing lifesaving skills like first aid and CPR, are being held at the Sutton Road station as part of the Safety Zone Project.

Organised by Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service in conjunction with six other agencies, Safety Zone is one of the biggest community safety events that NFRS runs for children and comes as part of a month-long campaign to promote child safety and wellbeing.

“Throughout the month of June we are raising awareness of all things child safety and trying to give Nottinghamshire children some vital education when it comes to staying safe from fire, identifying potential hazards and what to do in an emergency,” said Station Manager Matthew Reavill, head of the service’s community safety north team.

“The Safety Zone event is a fantastic opportunity to engage with a large number of children from schools across the north of the county and promote some really important messages.

“The children will work through a variety of workshops during the event where they will be taught things such as how to make a 999 call, the importance of smoke alarms, the dangers of fire setting and how to recognise hazards in the home as well as cyber safety and much more.”

The Safety Zone project runs until Friday 26th June and is being run by NFRS’s community safety north team.

One of the event’s organisers, Louise Robinson, a NFRS risk reduction officer for Mansfield and Ashfield, said that in the past children that attended Safety Zone have gone on to use the skills they learnt in emergency situations.

“Prior to the event the children are given a test at school in which they have to answer multiple choice questions on things such as what they should do when calling 999.

“When Safety Zone has finished, the children are then given the same test so we can see how much they have actually learnt.”

The other agencies that will be on hand at the event offering important safety advice and running workshops are Nottinghamshire Police, the East Midlands Ambulance Service, the RNLI, St John Ambulance, Western Power Distribution and the Nottinghamshire Road Safety Partnership.