Crawley man achieves Community Partnership Award for 27 years of service to West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service

Mark Maynard, 52 from Pound Hill, provides vehicles for the fire service to practise road traffic collision scenarios on. He supplies the vehicles for free to stations in Crawley, Horsham, Haywards Heath, Turners Hill, Horley and East Grinstead.

Over the 27 years, Mark has supplied cars for many training exercises including a mock plane crash at Gatwick Airport. He also helps the fire crews tidy-up after the training, and gives the wrecked cars to GW Bridges breakers yard.

Mark, also known affectionately as ‘Muttley’ by crew at Crawley Fire Station supplies the vehicles through his auto recovery business that he set-up after finishing school. His business Autocovery is the “second oldest business in Crawley” according to Mark.

There has been a significant decrease in people donating cars to Autocovery for the use of West Sussex first stations and this is a result of “people selling their old cars to scrappers as times are financially difficult for people at the moment”.

Fire crews need vehicles to practise on because it helps sharpen their skills and save lives.

Mark offers free collections and will drive over 100 miles to collect unwanted vehicles. He will also sort out the logbook if needed.

He picked up his Community Partnership Award at an event at Arundel Castle, which was presented by the Chief Fire Officer of West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, Dr. Sabrina Cohen-Hatton.

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service Group Manager Training Transition James Mackay said: “Mark Maynard (Muttley) is not an FRS employee but a chap who runs his own local vehicle recovery firm in Crawley. Mark has provided scrap cars for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service for road traffic collision training for stations in Crawley, Horley, Horsham, Turners Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath for more than 25 years.

“Mark has done this free of charge for this entire time. He has supported stations locally with cars for open days or local campaigns as well.

“Without support like this our firefighters can’t undertake realistic training to prepare them for responding to a road traffic collision. It is a very important element of firefighter training. We are especially pleased to be able to give Mark this award for his service to WSFRS over the last 25 years.”

Mark discussed his work and how important it is to donate unwanted cars.

He said: I supply the cars for the crews training. It is something I decided to do 27 years ago when I worked for the police with another company. I didn’t realise that 27 years ago I would still be doing it. I’m just happy at what I do. I feel like I’m doing a good service for the team. “We always need more cars for training and I know they are a little bit hard to get hold of at the moment because people need to sell them for money as bills are going up. We are always after donations at all times.

“I felt very nervous picking up the award but I was proud to be honoured. It was really nice to see some old faces too.

“I just want to help society and do my bit for the fire brigade. One of the stations I do is in Horley and it is a big training area. I like the satisfaction of taking the vehicles into the station, so they can train on them and to help save lives at the end of the day.

“People can help the fire brigade by donating their old cars. They desperately need them and at the end of the day, if they don’t get enough training on them they will not be able to save as many lives as they already do.“

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If you would like to donate a car to West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, please call Mark on: 07860 667785