A COLLABORATION between blood bikers and the town’s fire station has been hailed as ‘revolutionary’.

SERV Wessex volunteers have agreed a partnership with Andover Fire Station to allow one of the charity’s marked bikes to be stored on site.

In the past, the marked bike would be kept at the on-duty volunteer’s house and it would be up to the next biker to collect it for their shift, but now the motorcycle will be kept at the station in a safe place, along with their own vehicle.

It is hoped that the agreement will help cut down journey times and inconvenience for the bikers and their families - who carry out the role completely voluntarily and often on top of full-time jobs.

The idea sprung from a call to volunteers to find safe and secure locations to store the charity’s six marked bikes.

And Andover biker Gary Kerrison began exploring options but it was a chat at his son’s rugby match which got the ball rolling.

“I was at the game and was talking to the then duty manager who said that the station might have a place where we could store the bike,” said Gary, who has been a blood biker for almost two years.

Eighteen months of work then went into discussing the idea but on September 14 the final agreement was signed.

“What they have done for us is revolutionise what we do. We were managing fine but because we cover such a large geography the challenge we were facing was how do we get the bike to the next person.

“It is phenomenal what they have done by allowing us to be part of their family it helps us.”

Gary added handovers have “vastly improved”, with other areas keeping an eye on the collaboration to see if it can be replicated elsewhere.