New fire service bases to serve Waveney will be built in Lowestoft after planners backed plans yesterday.

New fire service bases to serve Waveney will be built in Lowestoft after planners backed plans

yesterday.

A five-bay fire station will go up close to the South Lowestoft Relief Road off Stradbroke Road, along with a training centre and drill tower for the full time crew currently based on Normanston Drive.

And the Normanston Drive site will get a smaller building to house a one-bay fire station for the part-time crew currently based at Clifton Road in Kirkley.

The new stations were proposed in response to the changing needs of Lowestoft, with the historic focus of fire services at the industrial harbour area replaced by an ever-growing need for rapid response to road crashes on the A12 and domestic incidents in Carlton Colville.

The new one-bay station at Normanston Drive will leave a large part of the site unused.

At Stradbroke Road, the five-bay station will be built on the compound created as the operational centre of building work for the relief road.

The nearby pedestrian crossing would be linked to the fire station to make sure that its lights stayed green for traffic when appliances needed

to get away to an emergency

incident.

Members of the county council's development control committee threw their weight behind both proposals, despite having turned down similar plans in Ipswich.

Morris Rose, county councillor for The Saints, said he was concerned about other traffic in the area,

but was broadly supportive of the plan.

"I would be a little worried about the design of the training building and its proximity to the relief road and I am a little concerned that when it is in use for training, motorists could be distracted by that," he said.

Officials agreed to look at whether the design of the building could be altered.

Malcolm Cherry, who represents Oulton, added that he was worried about safety with fire engines getting on to the roundabout junction between the relief road and Stradbroke Road as many cars joined it at speed.

The plans are part of a £20m scheme to replace or upgrade 12 fire stations in Suffolk.

All upgrades or rebuild programmes would be funded through a private finance initiative.