Fire station closures will increase risk

A RISK assessment of the proposed closure of seven Warwickshire fire stations has finally been made public – and it reveals that average response times will increase if the plans are approved.

The risk analysis report by consultants Det Norske Veritas was presented to Warwickshire County Council’s cabinet in July.

Up until now, the document has not been made available to members of the public because it was believed to be too complex.

But it has now been posted on Warwickshire County Council’s website for the public to access.

The aim of the risk review is to provide an independent assessment of the risks of the nine improvement objectives put forward by Warwickshire Fire and Rescue, including flooding response, small fires unit, duty systems and resources and false alarm attendance policy.

And it revealed that there will be an impact on the average response time, if the proposals are given the go-ahead.

While the review says the service will continue to meet emergency response standards of 10 minutes for urban call-outs and 20 minutes for rural call-outs, it said there will be an 18 second increase in average response times, which will increase fire and road accident risks.

The report said that this would require “careful management of change.”

It concluded: “Objective one increases risk, but this is outweighed by the significant cost saving.”

It also said there would be a large reduction in call-outs for false alarms, reducing wear and tear, fuel consumption and road accident risk because, under the proposals, there will be no attendance at automatic fire alarms without human confirmation of a fire.

However, the fire brigade will still respond to automatic fire alarms at defined premises that are slow to evacuate, such as hospitals and care homes.

But the risk analysis said there would be a “slower response to fires detected automatically and a consequent increase in fire damage risk”.

The study concluded that the overall package of improvements would be beneficial.

But it said there were some uncertainties in the proposals because it had been completed over a short timescale and makes use of national calculations of the effects of response times, instead of local models.

The proposals are also based on fire statistics from 2006/07 and fire damage costs from 2004, instead of using more recent data which the analysis said would “have a small impact because fire frequencies have reduced but costs have increased.”

Warwick and Leamington MP James Plaskitt, who is continuing his campaign to stop the fire station closures, said: “The secret internal report shows this is a hurried cost-cutting exercise which carries significant risk to the community.

“It’s shocking that the council has been trying to hide this evidence throughout the consultation, and instead set out a deliberately misleading prospectus.”

Mr Plaskitt also arranged a meeting with the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Warwick firefighter Ben Cleminson to raise concerns about the proposals.

He added: “I continue to be inundated with support for my campaign to save Warwick Fire Station. The petition is now at 6,000 and still growing.

“Now we can add the occupant at 10 Downing Street to the list. Having listened to what Ben had to say, the Prime Minister has asked me to keep him briefed on the progress of my campaign.”