Uckfield councillors raise concern about fire service proposals

Uckfield councillors expressed concern at a meeting last night about recommended changes to fire service cover in the town.

Those recommendations, following a rural review conducted by East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, include standing down whole-time crews at night and instead using retained fire-fighters to respond to emergency calls, writes Cathy Watson.

But members of Uckfield Town Council’s general purposes committee preferred a suggestion put forward by staff at Uckfield Fire Station which would keep cover by whole-time crews.

This proposal accepted the sale of fire service houses but suggested the money raised be used to pay allowances to whole time staff enabling them to buy or rent property near the station.

It was argued the proposal would remove a need to recruit additional retained staff and would guarantee appliance availability.

Assistant chief fire officer Gary Ferrand explained the extent of the review and said recommended changes would not affect fire cover in the town or response times.

He said there were potentially 19 fire-fighters currently available in Uckfield to respond to calls at night and more would be recruited before any changes were implemented.

He said the cost of recruiting and training additional retained staff was outweighed by savings to be gained in selling service houses which would raise about £250,000 each. There would also be savings in maintenance costs.

There were 31 service houses, he said, and selling them would allow huge reinvestment in the fire service capital programme.

Ian Ritchie who spoke on behalf of Uckfield fire fighters pointed out that the town’s station provided cover for fire stations as far away as Burwash when their retained pumps were unable to respond to calls.

He also said figures provided by East Sussex Fire and Rescue failed to take account of the road traffic accident risk factor even though it was known that the number of people killed and seriously injured on Wealden roads was one of the highest in the country.

He added that Uckfield firefighters were concerned that the service would be unable to guarantee fire cover if crewing changes were made and urged councillors to oppose those changes.

Cllr Len Ashby said: “At the back of my mind I am quite worried that if you reduce something and take away stations there is going to be more of a burden.

“You say this won’t reduce our cover for Uckfield, but that can’t be quite true, also the fact that you missed the use of the fire service for RTAs makes me more worried. I don’t think I can support this.”

Cllr Bob Sweetland said: “I find the proposals ambiguous, there are a lot of statistics and I am not sure this is the right way forward.”

He favoured the compromise suggested by Uckfield Fire Station of retaining whole time staff while selling service houses to realise the assets and using the savings to pay realistic allowances.

Cllr Len Ashby said it was difficult listening to two professionals arguing their own points of view while putting councillors in the middle.

He suggested accepting re-organisation principles while asking the fire service to seriously consider the option submitted by the Uckfield Fire Station. Other councillors voted in support of this idea.