Babcock International Group has been announced as the preferred bidder on the multi-million pound contract to manage London Fire Brigade’s (LFB) fleet. 

Following the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority’s (LFEPA) announcement, there will be a mandatory 10 day standstill period before the process can continue to final contract award.  The contract is expected to become operational on November 13, 2014.

Over the 21 year contract period, Babcock will be working with London Fire Brigade, the UK's largest fire and rescue service, to manage and maintain its fleet of 500 vehicles and 50,000 pieces of specialist equipment across an operational territory covering 1,587 square hectares of Greater London.

Since November 2012, Babcock has successfully delivered LFB’s fleet management services, delivering high availability across its vehicles and equipment and ensuring support when and where it has been needed.

Neal Misell, Babcock’s managing director, Critical Services, said: “We are delighted to have been chosen as the preferred tenderer on this important contract, and look forward to collaborating with London Fire Brigade on increasing the fleet’s efficiency and resilience to meet the future demands of London.

“Our engineering expertise coupled with proven capability has consistently delivered within the emergency services sector to customers that include the Metropolitan Police Service’s operational fleet and the Government’s New Dimension fleet, where Babcock has helped increase resilience, reduced costs, introduced innovation and helped customers maintain critical frontline focus.”

As part of Babcock’s commitment to LFB, a significant investment will be made in the operational premises both at the existing site in Ruislip and at a new facility in Greenwich. This will provide state-of-the–art facilities for the management and maintenance of the fleet as well as well as enabling greater community engagement.

The new contract builds on Babcock’s long term partnership with LFB, following the 25-year LFB’s training contract award in 2011. Babcock is developing and delivering enhanced training programmes and new world-class training facilities to LFB.

LFEPA is the UK’s largest fire and rescue authority serving over 7 million people across London. Its 5,800 operational firefighters and officers are based at its 113 stations located across the capital.