RESIDENTS living outside a proposed site for the country’s first emergency services hub say they feel insulted after a traffic survey was completed during the school holidays.

Feelings are already running high in Barnard Castle where plans are being proposed for the multi-million-pound “quad” station which would house fire, police, ambulance and mountain rescue services on the site of the current fire station in Wilson Street.

Residents voiced their fears at a special meeting held by the town council last month, where they said they were concerned over the amount of extra traffic that would be added to the already congested bottleneck in the street.

However, fire chiefs maintained that the site is the best option for the station, which is run by retained firefighters, with several living in Wilson Street already.

They also stressed that the Government grant for the £3.78m hub had to be spent soon otherwise it would be returned to the £75m Fire Transformation Fund pot.

County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service confirmed a traffic survey was carried out last week for “background information” but that it was “not necessary as part of the planning application”.

However, residents and town councillors claim the plans are being treated like a “done deal”.

Wilson Street resident, Dick Francis, said the street was normally very congested with parents picking up their children from both St Mary’s RC and Barnard Castle School, while people also parked on the street to attend church services and activities such as rugby and scout meetings.

“The monitoring equipment was put up for 24 hours last Wednesday (April 8), with one camera at the top and one at the bottom but both schools were closed so there was no traffic,” he said.

“I think it’s an insult and I think the public relations of the fire service is deplorable.”

Barnard Castle town clerk, Michael King, said the town council wanted to “explore whether or not a 24-hour survey in the school holiday was sufficient to really characterise the traffic in Wilson Street”.

A spokesperson for County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service said: “Although a traffic survey is not necessary as part of the planning application in this case, it was carried out for background information.

“Time constraints meant that the survey was carried out this week, however planning officers will, as is usual with all applications, consider all of the factors in an area, including the presence of schools and the resulting traffic flow before making recommendations.”