Albany SES gear up to move into their new $3 million headquarters next year

Construction has started on Albany’s new $3 million State Emergency Services headquarters, with the facility to serve as an incident control centre for major emergencies in the region.

Emergency Services Minister Reece Whitby, Emergency Services Commissioner Darren Klemm, City of Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington and Albany MP Rebecca Stephens turned the sod at the Mercer Road site on Wednesday.

The facility is expected to be operational in time for the local volunteer organisation’s 40th anniversary next year.

More than 70 volunteers and the vehicle fleet are expected to move out of their current building on Sanford Road and into the new base by October 2022.

Albany SES was formed in 1982 and the crew moved into its Sandford Road base two years later.

Mr Whitby said the long-overdue facility would provide a significant asset for both the volunteers and the community.

“It’s going to provide a level-three incident control centre which will be the headquarters for any major disaster or a major incident in this part of the world in the Great Southern,” he said.

“The SES do an amazing job ... so they deserve this facility to operate from.”

The new facility will have a bigger response building, administration building, training areas and a six-bay garage.

Albany SES local manager Robert Boyes said the volunteers were looking forward to moving in.

“If you come back from an incident that might be in the middle of winter you will be able to have shower and warm up — at the moment you have to go home dripping wet,” he said. “In the summer it will be good to have somewhere air-conditioned to go back when you’ve been lugging a stretcher for 41/2 hours.

“The new facility will make their lives far more pleasant.”