Defibrillator for Ford

Cast your minds back to September 2023…..

We had a meeting inviting all the parishoners to let us know what they wanted for the area and how they and we could help with those plans and wishes.

Many things were suggested and discussed, one being a defibrillator for Ford, which the parish council agreed to put some funds towards it.   

This would seem like a fairly straightforward request, just allocate some funds and buy one (if only!) 

The first thing was where to site it.                                                                                             

 A resident offered to have it on their land but when we took advice, we were told that this could store up a problem in the future if the premises were sold. The most obvious place to site the defibrillator was in the phone box. The phone box is just across the parish boundary and is owned by Onecote parish Council. We had to get permission from them in order to site a machine there, which eventually we got. Onecote have a lot of expense with the defibrillator in their village, so they weren’t able to help with the cost.                                                       

  Next, we needed an electricity supply which was all but impossible to get anyone to commit to and unbelievably expensive when they did. All the government schemes for defibrillators were for half price machines that needed electricity, so again another brick wall.         

Eventually we sourced a machine that will survive without electricity (it is only needed to keep it warm as they all run on batteries) but of course it is much more expensive to purchase.

Finally we ordered the machine and it is now installed in the telephone box at Ford. The Parish Council have put quite a lot of money towards this and have been helped by the very generous gift from the Alstonfield LeadenBoot who have given us £1,000 towards the cost and also to the Grindon Action Group who have given us £1,200. Our local Councillor Jonathan Kempster even managed to get us £100 to help with the cost and Grindon Parish Church have also given us £200.Many thanks to all those organisations, we couldn’t have done it without you.

As this article is published, the training date has been organised for Tuesday 18th February 2025 in Grindon Village Hall, everyone is welcome to attend, just let the council know, so that we have an idea of numbers.