RED ALERT
12,000 firefighters axed in Tory austerity Deaths up 9% as response times rise 40 stations shut, dozens in staff crisis
BRITAIN’S fire service is in crisis as regions struggle with little or no cover after eight years of savage Tory cuts, a Daily Mirror investigation can reveal.
Firefighters have endured “one of their worst summers ever” with the reduction in staff being fully exposed.
Around 40 stations have been forced to close due to low staffing levels and fire engines are being left locked up because there are not enough crew-members to man them.
And in the past 12 months, there has been a rise in fire-related deaths across the country.
Since 2010, nearly 12,000 front-line firefighter jobs have gone. Scotland has lost 1,123 and Wales 267, Fire Brigades Union figures show. Figures for regions across England make for shocking reading. Tyne and Wear has lost 285, Cleveland 176, Humberside 208, West Yorkshire 572, Greater Manchester 700, Merseyside 386, West Midlands 455 and London 1,334.
Desperate firefighters have taken to Facebook to highlight the problems, fearing lives are at risk.
A former operational manager at one force, told the Mirror: “It’s very high-risk at the moment. We had a rule where you could not send less than four firefighters on a job, for health and safety reasons.
“Now they get away with just sending three. It is a matter of time before a firefighter is killed or seriously injured.
“The fire stations speaking up about the issues on Facebook are quite brave. They’re hoping to get some public support.
“On July 2, a car drove on to a driveway on fire and set both houses alight. It took 42 minutes until a fire engine turned up.”
In the past eight years, at least 40 fire stations have closed across the country but many more full-time stations have been downgraded to parttime hours. Surrey Fire and Rescue Service is currently seeing stations shut on an almost daily basis because of a lack of cover. During the heatwave and as recently as Sunday, the following stations in the county have had to close on any one day: Banstead, Guildford, Woking, Camberley, Staines, Chertsey, Walton, Painshill, Egham and Esher.
Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Tory cuts have devastated the fire and rescue service.
“We simply do not have enough firefighters left to keep people safe – the service has been cut to ribbons.
“Fire deaths have increased, as has the amount of time it takes fire crews to respond to an emergency. This is what happens when you cut firefighter jobs and close stations. The Tories have led the longest, most sustained assault on the fire service in its history.
“They heap praise on firefighters after every major incident, yet they do not listen one iota to our professional concerns about the state of an overstretched and underfunded service.”
Many stations across the country have been forced to close for good since 2010. Several have been axed in Merseyside. They include in the Wirral, where West Kirby has closed and Upton station is soon to close – with the two replaced by one station to cover both areas.
An elderly couple died in a house fire the year after West Kirby’s 2015 closure and Mark Rowe, the FBU’s secretary of the Merseyside branch, said the unnamed pair could have been saved if it was not for its axing.
He said at the time: “If West Kirby fire station had remained open, we could be looking at a different outcome today.”
The region’s Allerton fire station also closed in 2015 and Whiston followed the year after. Wallasey station in Merseyside is set to go day-time only in September this year, alongside Liverpool City Centre. They are two of six in the area that will operate from 8.30am to 8.30pm only.
In 2016, Haydon Bridge, in Northumberland lost its station as part of a £500,000 savings plan.
In the same year, Middlesbrough’s Marine fire station was
closed. In 2015, Gipton fire station and Stanks station, both in Leeds, West Yorks, were closed and replaced by one hub to cover both areas.
The same year in West Yorkshire saw the closure of Brighouse and Elland stations in Calderdale, Hemsworth and South Elmsall, in Wakefield, and Batley and Dewsbury, in Kirklees.
Four “super stations” covering each area replaced the eight closures.
One West Midlands firefighter told the Mirror: “The worst place I’d ever want to be in a car crash would be in a shire brigade. You could end up waiting for an hour for someone to come and get you.”
Another risk is engines being “off the run” – meaning appliances are left sitting in stations because there are not enough crew-members to man them.
In Manchester, at least six fire engines are “off the run” daily because of staff shortages, the FBU said.
It said dozens of engines are unavailable due to staff shortages in Merseyside and, in South Yorkshire, 10 fire appliances are off the run each week to due a lack of personnel. In Merseyside alone, between 2010 and 2020 there will have been a 48% cut in fire engines across the region – from a total of 42 to just 22, FBU figures reveal.
Home Office statistics show in the year ending September 2017, and excluding the 72 who died in the Grenfell Tower tragedy, there was a 9% increase in fire-related fatalities.
Without Grenfell, there was 275 compared to 253 the previous year.
Between 2010 and 2015, more than 30% of central funding to fire and rescue services was cut, according to the National Audit Office. Further cuts of 20% to 2020 have been set out in the Local Government Settlement.
A South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said: “We sometimes experience periods when fire engines are off the run, but the reasons for this are rarely lack of personnel.”
Merseyside Fire & Rescue said: “The changes to crewing... are a direct response to the cuts that have affected the fire & rescue service...”