New safety centre opens in Oxford

A new safety education centre named in honour of the work of two firefighters has opened its doors at Oxford's Rewley Road Fire Station.

The Franklin-Vermeulen Safety Centre has been named after Keith Franklin and Steve Vermeulen, who worked together as community safety instructors.

They were involved in the Junior Citizen programme.

It is a scheme aimed at improving children's awareness of community safety issues.

Tireless work

Mr Vermeulen, who died in 2003 at the age of 47, was a key figure in setting up the electric blanket testing scheme now carried out by Oxfordshire County Council's Fire and Rescue and Trading Standards Services each year.

Mr Franklin still works on Junior Citizen and has been voted onto the Junior Citizen Committee this year.

Mr Franklin said: "When told about the naming of the centre, my first emotion was embarrassment, swiftly followed by a feeling of pride at the thought that my fellow colleagues in Junior Citizen felt that I deserved such an honour."

He added: "Steve was a really nice guy who had everybody else's interests at heart. He genuinely wanted to make the world a safer place and he was really enthusiastic about his work in community safety and that enthusiasm rubbed off onto everyone else who worked with him."

The new centre is located on the second floor of the fire station, and consists of a series of converted offices where different safety scenarios can be acted out including road safety, first aid and fire safety.

It it hoped the scenarios could be adapted for the wider community such as adult special needs groups and other vulnerable community groups.