Cockermouth Fire Station

Local stations

• Workington - 10 miles
• Maryport - 7 miles
• Aspatria - 9 miles

15,900 population

Crewing type

On-call

Fleet

• 1 fire engine
• 1 welfare unit

Cockermouth is a busy market town situated just outside the boundary of the Lake District  National Park, between the western lakes and the industrial west coast. Cockermouth has a thriving tourist trade with its links to William Wordsworth, art galleries, working brewery and castle amongst many attractions and has an exclusive conservation area within the town and numerous listed buildings/structures.

Cockermouth has a population of around 8,000 and the main local employment being Walkers, a gasket manufacture and the local livestock auction company Mitchell's. The infrastructure means hotels, residential homes, garages and shops make up the rest of the area except for the domestic housing stock, that covers the full range from brand new complexes, to farms, and churches that have been on site since the middle ages.

Further information for this fire station is available on a number of themes at the Cumbria Intelligence Observatory, including:

• Population 

• Crime and Community

• Health and Social Care

• Housing

• Economy and Employment

• Environment

• Children and Young People

Please visit www.cumbriaobservatory.org.uk and choose a fire station area for your particular theme of interest.

The area contains:

• 5 Grade I listed buildings and 8 Grade II listed buildings

• There are 3 Special Areas of Conservation; Clints Quarry, Moota and Bassenthwaite, plus 5 Sites of Specific Scientific Interest

• No significant Site Specific Risks are identified within the station area

• Flood Risk: The Town is the location where two large rivers merge (The Cocker and The Derwent) and this has resulted in major flooding in the past, none more so than in 2009 when an unprecedented level of rainfall fell and led to a major emergency requiring the rescue of persons from hundreds of homes in and adjacent to the Town Centre.

  The Flood Risk Area covers an urban area of some 0.77 square kilometres with almost 600 properties at risk. The Town was subject to a 1 in 100 year flooding event in 2005, with the main source of flooding caused by the River Derwent overtopping its defences. However, this event was dramatically superseded in 2009 when a 1 in1000 year flooding event, caused by the highest level of rainfall ever to fall in a 24 hour period since records began, devastated the Town as the Rivers Cocker and Derwent broke their Banks and placed the entire Town Centre under water.

The busy A66 and A 595 trunk roads which merge at Cockermouth, have a high risk of road traffic collisions with the potential for very serious incidents due to the number of chemical tankers that supply the west Cumbrian coast. Other risks in the area are associated with the large number of agricultural premises. Open farmland brings the danger of barn fires, heath and moor land fires, as well as livestock rescues.