Playing with fire

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has been accused of putting lives at risk with planned cuts.

It is also claimed retained crews are deliberately being targeted because they are becoming more expensive to insure.

The county representative of the Retained Fire Union, Watch Commander Adam Moore, whose Edwinstowe station would close under the proposals, said he was “shell-shocked.”

He said: “Communities in Newark and Sherwood will be left unprotected. People’s lives are being put at risk.

“It isn’t about saving money. This is to cover up a direct attack on the retained crews who are brave and dedicated men and women serving the communities where they live and work.

“They are frightened because of what happened in Warwickshire when four retained fireman died and people there are being investigated for corporate health and safety. We are more expensive to insure.”

The county fire service has a budget of just under £46m for next year — £2.7m less than in 2010-11.

Retained stations at Collingham, Edwinstowe and Warsop are earmarked for closure. Three other stations — home to full-time and retained firefighters — would lose their retained crews.

Six of the county’s 36 fire engines would go, as would about 100 retained firefighters.

Mr Moore, a fireman for 30 years, said the service had £6m in reserves and was owed £4.5m from the sale of the former Dunkirk Fire Station.

“We can save £8m in four years by tightening our belts and with a recruitment freeze, without the need to lose a single firefighter’s job,” he said.

The retained service, he said, put a number of ideas to a 2009 review of how their service could be improved, but none of the 25 recommendations had been implemented.

A new Ollerton Fire Station, to be staffed by full-time firemen, was a diversion, he said. It was one appliance replacing two, and it would have to provide back-up at Newark Fire Station, with Collingham gone.

Chief Fire Officer Frank Swann said: “The Fire Cover Review was motivated by the need to review frontline services county-wide to make sure we are providing the right services in the right place to respond to current and future risks and demands. We haven’t done this since 1987.

“It was not about saving money. Nor was it a knee-jerk reaction to the cut in our grant. However, the cuts do mean that we will no longer be able to reinvest any savings in other services.

“The detailed work we have been doing over the last ten months has given us the information upon which to propose changes that will strengthen our emergency response and put firefighters and equipment in the best places to keep the public safe.

“Replacing two retained stations with a whole-time station at Ollerton will put cover in the most appropriate location for that area and will give 24/7 cover.”

“The Collingham area will also be covered by Ollerton and Newark (both wholetime).

“The 2009 Retained Review did not consider fire risk, nor was it intended to. Instead, it focused on the long-term issues relating to recruitment, retention and sustainability of the retained service, and confirmed that it was becoming increasingly difficult to provide appropriate cover in this way.

“We will be considering if we can use some of our reserves, but this is only a one-off sum of money and will therefore not be available in future years.

“The sale of Dunkirk will generate capital and not revenue and the money we achieve from the sale is already earmarked to pay for Highfields station in Nottingham, which opened in 2009.”

Mr Swann said consultation on the proposals would happen after the fire authority had made a decision on the proposals in February.