The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Fire service appeal for £60m funding for ‘modern’ risks
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) needs increased funding in order to address modernday risks such as climate change, bosses have said.
Stuart Stevens, deputy chief officer for the SFRS, says the organisation needs £60 million a year from the Scottish Government in order to fulfil its role.
It comes as the SFRS launched its Strategic Service Review yesterday, which will hear from the public on areas where they believe the force can be improved.
Speaking at McDonald Road Fire Station in Edinburgh, Mr Stevens said the review aims to “deliver an ambitious vision for SFRS that provides a modern, sustainable fire and rescue service for communities for Scotland”.
He said: “The big part of that is to ensure that we are addressing the emerging risk within Scotland and recognise that the risk in Scotland has changed, and as such SFRS needs to change in order to make sure that we can address that risk”.
Issues faced by the SFRS include an ageing estate, with two-thirds of it being more than 30 years old.
Fourteen fire stations also have issues with Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) panels, and have had temporary supports installed to reinforce roofing.
Additionally, more than half of its 356 fire stations are deemed to be in a poor or bad condition.
Mr Stevens said there are no changes planned at this stage, and no current plans to close any of the stations, but they will consider the responses to the review and go from there.
He said risks faced by fire crews have changed in recent years, citing increased issues as a result of climate change, and said the SFRS must change in order to handle evolving risks in Scotland.
The fire chief said: “At the moment we’re looking at everything across the organisation.
“Risk in Scotland has changed. Things like shipyards, coal mines and heavy industry are no longer there, some of our fire station footprint was placed around about those types of risks.
“So risk has changed, and there’s emerging risks in terms of the impacts and effects of climate change which we are seeing much more readily at the moment, and incidents of climate change are becoming much more severe and we only have to look at last year in terms of things like Storm Babet.”
In the last 20 years, the SFRS has reduced house fires by more than 50% – which Mr Stevens says the force can reduce even more if it changes its approach.
He also wants crews to have better training and equipment in order to deal with risks more effectively.
Mr Stevens said: “While we welcome the increased funding that we’ve had from the Scottish Government this year, we believe that we need £60m per year in order to address our capital backlogs.”
Community Safety Minister Siobhian Brown said: “The emergencies that the SFRS respond to have changed significantly over the years.
“Partly as a result of an emphasis on prevention, house fires in Scotland have decreased by almost half in the past 20 years and the total number of fires is down by 56% in the same period.
“The overall number of incidents that SFRS attends, however, has increased, with climate change presenting more challenges concerning flood risks and wildfires.”