Fire control row Tory MPS against Surl’s plan for service

FIVE of the county’s MPS have called on Police and Crime Commissioner Martin Surl to back down from a bid that would see him run the fire service.

The five Conservative MPS have penned a letter arguing the service takeover attempt will cost Gloucestershire Constabulary more money after an initial attempt last year “found no proven financial benefits”.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-brown (Cotswolds), Alex Chalk (Cheltenham), Richard Graham (Gloucester), Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) and Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) signed a letter that said the move would go against the police budget being “spent wisely”.

Mr Surl said he invited the MPS to a briefing on his outline case but none of them turned up. He added that “they appear to have formed an opinion based on misinformation”.

Stroud’s Labour MP David Drew, who attended the meeting with Mr Surl, said there needs to be an investigation into Gloucestershire’s Fire & Rescue Service “before its future provision can be considered”.

A report by consultancy firm Ameo commissioned by Gloucestershire County Council last year to assess the effectiveness of a merger, found it would cost taxpayers £2.5million over three years.

The news comes as the county council agreed to urge Mr Surl to drop his plans or they would write to Home Secretary Sajid Javid calling on him to reject it. But Mr Surl argues the governance of the fire service needs to be looked at again following the resignation of chief fire officer Stewart Edgar.

Mr Edgar was forced to step down from the top job earlier this year after selling a surplus fire-service Land Rover to a company for £500, later buying it for himself. The letter came from the office of Mr Clifton-brown

In a reply, Mr Surl said he wants to “correct the assumption that a change of governance would be financially detrimental to the police or fire services.”

The Government introduced legislation last year enabling PCCS to look at fire governance and provided funding for it. leigh.boobyer@reachplc.com