London Hazards are urging everyone to sign an E-Petition to the Government against the continueing closures of Fire Stations, and in particular those in London.
The petition says:
“We demand that the Government holds true to its election pledge that no front line services will be cut and they halt the closure of any London Fire Station and any job cuts within the London Fire Brigade being imposed by London Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson”
The fire station at Clapham in London is the next in line for closure.
The cuts are quite dramatic, whilst fire crews will be expected to provide the same level of service and response times.
Currently, the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), the political body which runs the London Fire Brigade, is consulting on its Draft Fifth London Safety Plan, which outlines how the Authority will deliver the capital’s fire and rescue service over the next three years.
The corporate view of the Authority is that, while it has recorded its opposition to station closures, appliance and staff reductions, it is consulting fairly on the draft LSP5 proposals which are subject to the Mayor’s direction and will take into account responses to the consultation before making a final decision.
Included in the plan are details of how the Authority proposes to make savings worth £28.8m, including closing 12 fire stations, removing 18 fire engines, relocating four fire engines and reducing the number of firefighter posts by 520.
This would be done while maintaining existing response time targets of getting the first fire engine to an incident, on average across London, in six minutes and the second, if needed in eight minutes. These are amongst the fastest target response times of any emergency service in the country and almost twice as fast as some other brigades. However, some boroughs will see reduced actual attendance times.
But London Hazards claims that Londoners will wait twice as long for a fire engine if the proposed cuts go ahead.
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) claims that over one thousand firefighter jobs had been cut in the first year of the Tory-led coalition government.
The FBU maintain that Firefighters wages make up over three-quarters of fire and rescue service budgets, so cuts to fire service funding invariably mean cuts to firefighters jobs. But it is only professional firefighters who can put out fires, deal with other emergencies and rescue people safely. Fewer firefighters puts the public at greater risk of injury and death. That’s why the Fire Brigades Union says “cuts cost lives”.
Last week, The FBU told the London Mayor, Boris Johnson, to abandon cuts after firefighters from a fire station marked for closure; saved a man’s life with only seconds to spare.
The FBU issued a statement following the incident:
“Firefighters from threatened Silvertown fire station were first on the scene after the brigade was called to a serious blaze in an industrial unit in Shirley Street, Canning Town at 2.53am this morning (6 June). The engine from Silvertown arrived at 2.58am, whereupon crews discovered a man trapped on the first floor. A firefighter provided the man with oxygen through a barred window while colleagues in breathing apparatus gained entry to the premises and rescued him.
The casualty was removed to hospital by the London Ambulance Service suffering from smoke inhalation.
So severe was the fire that a further seven engines were mobilised to attend, including one from Whitechapel fire station, which stands to lose an engine under the mayor’s cuts. It took nearly five hours to bring the blaze under control. Firefighters also isolated potentially explosive gas cylinders from a workshop in the building.”
The FBU’s regional secretary for London, Paul Embery, commented:
“We’ve said all along that these cuts will threaten lives, and this latest dramatic incident in Silvertown demonstrates why that is so. The casualty was in a desperate situation, and if the response time had been a few seconds longer he may not have survived. Silvertown crews were operating for some minutes before they received back-up, so we can reasonably assume that this casualty owes a lot – perhaps even his life – to Silvertown fire station.”
He continued:
“These cuts are dangerous and wrong. Last month, we saw the release of bombshell data which showed how response times for some Londoners will double after the cuts. In our service, seconds really do count, and those seconds can be the difference between life and death for people trapped in fires.
We urge Mr Johnson to do the right thing and abandon plans that will unquestionably imperil the safety of Londoners.”
The FBU is calling on firefighters to join a protest against fire brigade cuts at the next session of Mayor’s Question Time, to take place at City Hall from 9.00am on 19 June.
Source: London Hazards / London Fire Brigade / FBU
