Kingsclere firefighters voice concerns over budget cuts

Deadline today to make viewpoints known

KINGSCLERE firefighters have voiced concerns over proposed cuts to the fire service budget across North Hampshire that would result in fewer firefighters and fire engines.

As part of the proposals to plug a £16m gap in Government funding affecting Hampshire’s fire service over the next four years, Kingsclere Fire Station would see £28,000 wiped from its budget, along with £14,000 worth of savings at Tadley Fire Station.

The cuts would result in fewer firefighters and fire engines at both stations. They would be replaced with smaller, fast-response vehicles.

Crew managers Leigh Challis and Robert Gazzard and firefighter Jamie Mills of Kingsclere Fire Station spoke on the issue at Kingsclere Parish Council’s Monday meeting.

Mr Challis said during his six years at the retained station, the Fire Brigades Union had deemed it “unsafe” for a crew of three firefighters to attend an incident.

The proposed reductions of crews to as low as two firefighters on smaller, van-type vehicles, would therefore put firefighters under massive “moral pressure”, he said. Without a crew of five firefighters, he said they would be reduced to just attending bin fires.

Mr Challis said: “We can’t deploy to save life, we need at least five firefighters on the vehicle, otherwise we stand outside with two people and just watch the property burn.

“We are asking for a vehicle to carry five people – the vehicle we are being given can’t do that. We are going to be waiting for a second response from a back-up.

“Sometimes we are the only pump running in the north of the county.”

There had been an increase in road traffic accidents on the A339 near Kingsclere, at which heavy cutting gear to extricate trapped people was vital.

“This year we have attended at least five and one was a fatal,” he said, adding they had been called to two incidents in the last two weeks at Headley Ford, on the Hampshire Berkshire border.

Guest speakers HFRS fire chiefs, area manager, Kevin Evenett and station manager, Nigel Mottashed, highlighted lighter, new technology and equipment, including a high-pressure lance, used in Sweden.

Firefighters’ call-outs, said Mr Evenett, were falling, while ambulance call rates were rising and the proposals included sending a firefighter out with ambulance crews as a first responder.

None of the county’s 51 stations countywide would close.

A reduction of 225 firefighters would be by natural wastage, with no compulsory redundancies, and firefighter’s length of service would increase from 30 to 40 years, owing to a change in pensions, he added.

For more details, or to make your views known, visit www.hantsfire.gov.uk/a-safer-hampshire. The deadline is today (Friday).