ENTRY to the Allandale Rural Fire Brigade station will be made safer after the group secured a $5857 Commonwealth grant to build a driveway into the facility.
The new entry and driveway project will transform the entry to the station, which is currently accessed via a grass drainage ditch over a large hump.
The Allandale Fire Brigade, which has about 20 members on the books, will match the Commonwealth funding dollar for dollar to carry out the $11,714 project.
Brigade first officer Pieter de Visser said getting the Stronger Communities Program grant was a major boost for the community.
“We simply couldn’t do this project without it – we’d just be wallowing around in the mud instead of being able to get safe access to the station,” he said.
“As a volunteer group we work hard, we fundraise, we lobby and we network to get funding for these projects and we are so grateful to have secured this grant.”
Federal Member for Wright Scott Buchholz congratulated the Allandale Rural Fire Brigade on its success.
“Here is a small rural fire brigade which does such big things for our community – they started from humble beginnings in 1972, just a handful of farmers deciding to form a rural fire brigade using their own resources and now here they are putting in the hard yards to keep delivering for the people of this region,” he said.
“I thank the volunteers of the Allandale Rural Fire Brigade for their hard work fundraising through garage sales and raffles and the hours they’ve put in doing physical labour on the site themselves and I am glad the federal government could be of some assistance by providing funding towards this vital project.”
