So, according to a senior fire officer on 1st April, the service will not be downgraded in any way. Within days though, a serious fire in the centre of
Horsham has demonstrated that this is untrue. Unless Conservative County Councillors reverse
the cuts and properly protect people in the County, this will be the first of
many downgraded responses across West Sussex.
The serious fire in the historic centre of Horsham broke out
during a major public event. Instead of two fire engines arriving quickly from
Horsham, there was only one. The Council has removed the second wholetime
crewed fire engine and there was no crew for the other fire engine crewed by part
time firefighters. The vital second fire engine had to be sent from Crawley and
took much longer to arrive.
Firefighters are angry about misleading reports in the media and frustrated that they cannot comment. So here are a few of those comments:
“Moral within the
ranks is shockingly poor”.
“They keep talking about prevention being important, but
they have just cut hundreds of hours from our prevention work”.
“Saying we were consulted is a joke. They didn't listen, my
shift system has been changed and child care now costs me more. It’s worse for
others, some have been moved and others have had their pay cut.”
"Bosses are claiming
things are good but they are not"
“We are being forced to ride with crews of only four, which
means we can’t do all the jobs needed at shouts, unless we take more risks”.
West Sussex County Council set out to deceive the public by
suggesting the cuts would be harmless, even though they knew there would be extra deaths and property damage. It is clear they are continuing the
deception with more half-truths and misdirection. Sending the
required resources is not enough if they take longer to arrive.
That is clearly a life threatening downgrade.
The Assistant Chief Fire Officer has apparently said that the
emphasis was ‘solely on response’, when he joined in 1989. You have to wonder if he was wearing blinkers or if he started with the Trumpton Fire Brigade.
I joined in 1967 and the emphasis across the UK then was on both
prevention and response, and has been ever since. You only have to look at West
Sussex in 1981. Prevention posts had been cut the year before to save money
(sadly familiar story), but they still carried out nearly twice as many
prevention activities as they attended incidents.
Claims that there will be more retained firefighters are
also ridiculous as they have cut 15 retained firefighter posts. There are no extra ones. Even claims that more fire engines will be available are false. I have been sent evidence that reveals that on the Thursday morning before the cuts there
were just 22 fire engines available, but on the Thursday after the cuts that was
down to only 20.
The County Council has put West Sussex residents in greater
danger and ignored the many valid objections to these cuts. Over 1,700 have
signed the "Stop fire engine and firefighter cuts in West Sussex" petition on the WSCC
Epetitions website, and I would urge more to do so. Please share this with friends,
family and work colleagues in West Sussex.
Although I support your argument on the slow response of the 2nd appliance we need to remember that 6 years ago Crawley where regularly 2nd pump into Horsham because that 2nd whole time pump wasn't there then. And Horsham still had serious/large incidents.
ReplyDeleteThe 2nd Wholetime pump was also never really put there to serve the people of Horsham was it, it was put there to move around the county to where it was needed, that's why on the Sunday before these cuts it found itself dealing with an Incident in Haywards Heath, and no it wasn't in Horsham at the time of call.
6 years ago there were 5 pumps in Crawley Borough, now there are just two. Whatever the reason for moving it from Crawley Borough (Horley Fire Station), it still provided essential cover to the north of the County. The main point is that a senior officer claimed that "the service will not be downgraded in any way". That is quite simply a lie.
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