Who to vote for on May 6, if you care about your safety and about the fire & rescue service

If you want a fire & rescue service that keeps you safe, then your vote matters on the 6th of May. Please make sure you are registered and that you use your vote in all the elections on that day. If you are already registered, make it easy to vote by applying for a postal vote, but please note that your completed application form must arrive by 20th April.

I am not a member of a political party and my vote is not guaranteed to any particular party. That is because none of them have policies that I am in full agreement with, so when I vote I consider the candidates, their policies and their performance. 

Whilst campaigning in support of our fire & rescue services I have spoken to politicians, local and national, from every political party that will listen. I have yet to decide which candidates will get my vote in May and I will not try to influence anyone else to vote for specific candidates or political parties. 

However, based on past performance, the one thing I am sure of is that I will not be voting for any Conservative candidates. That is because Conservative Government policies and Conservative County Councillors have, over the last ten years, done immense damage to our fire & rescue service. 

As a result, we are all less safe.

Policies and decisions have not only been inept, they have been arrogantly steamrollered through with dishonest claims, unsubstantiated assurances and inadequate scrutiny.

Valid public concerns have been ignored, firefighters bullied,

and opposition Councillors treated with contempt.

Remember this?

There are still just 24 operational fire stations with 11 fewer operational fire engines, but even more incidents are being attended. Conservative Councillors falsely claimed that incidents would decrease, yet they have increased every year since 2015/16.

Even more incidents attended

In 2015, after the second round of cuts to the service, Conservative Cabinet Member Lionel Barnard stepped down. Conservative Leader Louise Goldsmith said at the time that he had left the fire and rescue service "in very good shape".

Just three years later Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services began an inspection that resulted in our fire & rescue service getting the worst report of the 45 services in England. 

Of the three principal areas they reviewed, how staff were looked after was rated inadequate, and both effectiveness and efficiency were rated as requires improvement. Not one of the sub categories achieved an acceptable 'good' rating. None of this was the fault of staff in the service, the blame lies squarely with the inept Council.

The County Council's Conservative administration repeatedly ignored warnings from firefighters, from the public, and from opposition Councillors. Conservative Councillors summarily dismissed genuine concerns as 'scaremongering'. The one well informed Conservative County Councillor who voiced concerns subsequently resigned, and others who dared to ask awkward questions were disciplined.

Conservatives: "in very good shape" = 

Inspectors: "inadequate" & "requires improvement".

We were told in 2014 that planned cuts were 'improvements' that would ensure at least 30 fire engines available around the clock. Despite warnings that the cuts would make fire crew availability worse, the Conservatives stuck their heads in the sand and went ahead. The result was that during the day, less than half that number were available and on occasions as few as ten fire engines were available to cover the whole of West Sussex.

We were told that money taken from operational response, by cutting fire engines and firefighters, would be used for prevention to save more lives. In 2015/16, when the cuts took effect, there were four fire deaths in West Sussex. In the first three quarters of 2020/21 there have already been four fire deaths in West Sussex (quarter four figures have not been released). The number of fire casualties taken to hospital has increased. In 2015/16 it was 43, in 2019/20 (latest full year figures) it was fifty two, a 21% increase.

The Conservative Government is talking about taking the fire & rescue service away from County Councils and giving control to Police & Crime Commissioners. There is no justification for this PCC empire building, and it will give the public even less of a say in how their fire & rescue service is run.

The Fire & Rescue Service should be safer in County Council hands, 

but it will not be safer if those hands are Conservative Party hands.