Self deception or deceiving the public?

The response time deception

This week I watched Conservative Cabinet Members congratulating their colleague Duncan Crow on this annual report. Unfortunately, they glossed over matters that should be of real concern and misrepresented others.

Councillor Steve Waight made one pertinent comment:

"The public tell me the most important thing is when you phone them, they come."

However, he then spoilt it by claiming the targets that were being met were tough ones. 

The target for the first fire engine to arrive at critical fires in Hampshire & Isle of Wight within 8 minutes may be considered a tough one. 

The target of 10 minutes in Surrey may be considered a reasonable one. 

Yet, the Cabinet's target for two thirds of West Sussex of 14 minutes, and 12 minutes for the other third, are most definitely not tough targets. 

Especially so as the target allows them to take longer at 11% of critical fires.

The improved performance deception

I was astonished to hear Chief Fire Officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton say that she had compared performance with several years ago and was 'absolutely delighted with the way the service has responded.'

I don't know what performance she compared, but it surely can't be to do with the public's primary expectation of a quick and effective response.

The County Council has reduced standard crewing on fire engines by 20%, which makes every crew less effective.

They have closed four fire stations and removed a quarter of frontline fire engines, which inevitably increases response times and reduces the service's effectiveness.

There are now 28% fewer firefighters in West Sussex, and the minimum number on duty in Crawley Borough has been cut by 60%.

Despite County Council claims that cuts would reduce fire deaths by diverting resources to prevention, they have increased.

Source: Home Office Fire & Rescue Service data

The shocking failure to ensure fire engines are crewed

During the day, two thirds of frontline fire engines depend on retained (on call) firefighters. At night, three quarters of frontline fire engines depend on them. Yet the latest figures show that they are unavailable more often than they are available.

Not only is this a serious County Council failure, they secretly dropped the availability target for fire engines crewed by retained firefighters from 88% to 75%.

Source - West Sussex County Council reports

Conservative failure, nationally and locally

The reduction in the service's effectiveness is the result of Conservative policies locally and nationally. With the general election this week there is a chance for people to show that they have had enough, but in West Sussex voters will need to vote tactically to defeat the Tories.

Unfortunately, the recommendations on tactical voting sites are very misleading, because they fail to take account of local differences. They rely on a small sample of national polling, no pollsters survey more than 0.1% of voters, and then try to model voting intentions at constituency level without examining local variations. Some do also look at local voting at previous general elections, but with the boundaries being changed, in some cases significantly, they are still unreliable.

I am not a member of any political party, but have followed politics locally for over 50 years. I have looked at the support shown for different political parties in recent local elections, and the performance of current candidates. My conclusion is that if you want to help remove Conservative MPs from West Sussex, then vote for the following candidates:

Definitely best tactical voting option

Chichester - Liberal Democrat

Crawley - Labour

East Worthing and Shoreham - Labour

Horsham - Liberal Democrat

Mid Sussex - Liberal Democrat

West Worthing - Labour

Less certain best tactical voting option

Arundel and South Downs - Green Party

Bognor Regis and Littlehampton - Labour

East Grinstead and Uckfield - Liberal Democrat

The most important thing is that you actually vote

People want change, but it won't happen unless people get out and vote. There are many excuses used by those who do not vote, but the reality is that they simply help those they complain about stay in power. 

The Reform UK Party deception

One final thought, please don't fall for the lies of the undemocratic and disruptive Reform Party. Not everyone who has fallen under their spell is a racist, xenophobe, Russian apologist, conspiracy theorist, or violent, but too many of their members and several candidates are. 

Not only is their 'contract' mostly unaffordable and unworkable, some of their candidates have some really odd views. Just one example, the Chichester Reform candidate told voters that people who do not run a business do not know what people need, and that policemen who are less than 6 feet tall are no good!

Cabinet Member plays Russian roulette with public safety

I had thought we could not have a worse Cabinet Member looking after the fire & rescue service than David Barling. After Friday’s County Council meeting, I am not so sure.

High-rise buildings

The new Cabinet Member, Debbie Kennard, appeared at best complacent, at worst inept. She is new in the post, so some nervousness is forgivable, but rejecting serious safety concerns with waffle is not.

Following a written answer, Councillor Michael Jones voiced his concerns that the response to a fire in a high-rise building, when it is detected automatically, is frighteningly inadequate. If a fire is suspected by a person, then around 30 firefighters with six fire engines, an aerial ladder platform and a command vehicle will be sent immediately. Yet, if relatives have sensibly had an automatic alarm installed in a vulnerable person’s flat, and that detects a fire, only one fire engine with four firefighters will be sent. Firefighters will be unable to carry out rescue or firefighting until they call for backup and that help eventually arrives. The Cabinet Member ignored his concerns. 

Following the Grenfell Tower tragedy, it is inconceivable that any responsible professional would recommend a policy that puts the public and firefighters in such danger. This can only be the Cabinet Member playing Russian roulette with the lives of the public she claims to protect and the firefighters she claims to support.

"Smoke detectors do detect real fires"

Councillor Jones also voiced concern about the estimated response time for high-rise buildings in West Sussex. The second fire engine won't always meet their generous response standard, and the full response could take more than half an hour to arrive. Response times that are all well over those recommended to the Prime Minister following the Grenfell Tower disaster. Yet the Cabinet Member failed to answer the Councillor's questions. Instead she read out some notes, which must have been prepared for an entirely different question. 

Similarly, when Councillor Kirsty Lord asked about inspections of schools, following the cladding problem at Grenfell Tower, the Cabinet Member decided to talk about the high-rise buildings that had been inspected.

Councillor Jones also questioned the previous lack of fire & rescue service inspections in high-rise buildings. He was told that inspections were risk assessed and priority given to vulnerable people "in buildings that are compliant with fire safety legislation and where staff are trained appropriately”. Councillor Jones pointed out that some people in high-rise buildings are also vulnerable, but there are no trained staff. The Cabinet Member was clearly not concerned with vulnerable people in high-rise buildings (shades of Kensington & Chelsea Council) and passed the buck to borough & district councils and building owners.

Cabinet Member unaware of her responsibilities

Councillor Brenda Smith asked if sprinklers will be included in new buildings built under the PropCo policy, which is where the County Council is the developer. The incredible answer from Councillor Kennard was, “we would love to put sprinklers in to buildings, but obviously we go by the regulations that are given to us by the fire & rescue authority”. 

Someone needs to tell her that the County Council is the fire & rescue authority and that, as Cabinet Member, she is responsible.

Cabinet Member fails to support fire service recommendations for sprinklers

Councillor James Walsh asked the Cabinet Member if she shared his concerns about reports that the Selsey Academy would ignore fire & rescue service advice and not install sprinklers in their new building. This was a golden opportunity for the Cabinet Member to show her support for the fire & rescue service and to promote the need for sprinklers to protect residents and firefighters. Instead, she chose to defend the company running the Academy by saying, “it is their choice”.

Police & Crime Commissioner's takeover threat is still real

Police & Crime Commissioner, Katy Bourne, has not abandoned her plans to take over the fire & rescue service, but has postponed the decision for two years. Sadly, the Cabinet Member’s response shows that she has yet to grasp the severity of the threat. Key elements of the Government’s case for change are that fire authorities need to be more accountable and transparent, and those are key weaknesses in West Sussex. Yet the Cabinet Member seemed oblivious and failed to respond positively, even to questions from Conservative Councillors.

Councillor Michael Jones threw the Cabinet Member a helpful lifeline by suggesting a cross-party group to work on dismantling the PCC’s report and strengthening the County Council’s case. He voiced concern that the Strategic Reference Group, which is there to guide the PCC’s review, only has Conservative politicians on it. Yet the Cabinet Member ignored the very important accountability and transparency issues that Councillor Jones was raising and rejected his suggestion.

County Councillors from all parties praised fire & rescue service personnel, which is great, but they are not the issue. The Government will eventually decide this issue on how well the County Council is running the service, not on how well staff are doing their jobs. The Cabinet Member kept referring to briefing notes sent to County Councillors, but clearly failed to grasp that is not providing proper accountability and transparency. Denying Councillors, from all political parties, the opportunity to discuss the issues and not making information available to the public, will simply strengthen Katy Bourne's hand.

Unless the Cabinet Member takes her head out of the sand, and recognises that it is her performance and the Council’s accountability and transparency that will be judged, then I fear for the future of our fire & rescue service.

Sean Ruth farce

Councillor James Walsh rightly criticised a written answer he was given on the dodgy deal that was done to enable Sean Ruth to ‘retire’ and keep his job. He pointed out that claiming the Executive Director post was not a Fire & Rescue Service post, when 90% of the Director’s budget is for the fire & rescue service, was less than honest. The answer also dishonestly claimed that there were no extra costs involved in splitting Sean Ruth’s post in two, and paying him a pension as well as his salary.

Council Chairman Lionel Barnard’s laughable defence of this farce began with him claiming that it was a “totally different post Mr Ruth was after”. Then, like a petulant teenager who doesn’t want to discuss their bad behaviour, Mr Barnard said, “he has decided not to take it up, so it is null and void.”

Deciphering the Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service Proposals (Cuts)

In case anyone is in danger of being seduced by the reassuring platitudes in the cynically named “Planning for a safer Hampshire”, or the sound bites from Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service officers, here are some facts.

THEY SAY	THE TRUTH
Response times will stay the same or improve	A deception, as the current response time is for proper fire engines with crews of at least four firefighters. Future response times will often be for a converted van with just two firefighters. The response time for a proper fire engine, with a proper crew, will be significantly longer for incidents right across Hampshire.
Smaller vehicles can deal with 70% of incidents	They have not mentioned that the 30% that they cannot deal with will be the most serious and most life threatening incidents. They don’t mention that full crews on proper fire engines can deal with, or initiate significant action at, 100% of calls. They don’t mention that calls from the public do not always report the nature of the emergency accurately, and they do not always report its severity properly. Firefighters arriving in response to a call to a rubbish or a chimney fire can find it is actually a building on fire.
We refuse to compromise the safety of Hampshire residents	Fine words, but they have to be compromising safety by replacing fully equipped and crewed fire engines with inferior vehicles and inadequate crews. They must also be compromising safety by increasing response times for a response that is capable of dealing with incidents.
We refuse to compromise the safety of our firefighters	The proposals represent an appalling breach of trust on the part of fire & rescue service managers. By sending an inferior vehicle, carrying just two firefighters, they know that at some point those firefighters will be faced with an impossible dilemma. The choice between helping the distraught parents of trapped children, by entering a burning building to try and save them, or of following fire & rescue service instructions and waiting until more firefighters arrive from the next town. Any self-respecting firefighter will take the extra risk to try and save a life and managers know that. Yet they are cynically creating a situation where, if the firefighters succeed they will be praised, but if not they will be condemned for breaking the rules. That is a disgrace.
We are committed to being one of the best fire & rescue services in the country	They say that because they know it sounds reassuring. However, the best fire & rescue services in the country have proper fire engines with five or six firefighters on each. Hampshire will mostly have converted vans with just two firefighters on them, so they know they have no chance of achieving this commitment
It’s really important that we meet the needs of the communities of Hampshire	It is important, but they know they cannot, or will not do that. They say it to deceive people in to thinking that they will listen to what the public want. They know most people will want proper fire engines with full crews, but they have no intention of providing that to everyone. Many communities will end up with a second or third class service.
Ensuring that we match resources to the risks	The risk of people losing their lives in a fire or accident, or of losing their home or business, exists in every part of Hampshire. No matter where they live, people deserve the same level of resources coming to their aid quickly. Unfortunately the fire & rescue service are ignoring the real risk and cutting resources. The most severe cuts are in rural areas where the risk to the individual is actually greater, because it already takes firefighters longer to get there. Just because calls are less frequent in those areas, as there are fewer people, does not reduce the risk to those people. The risk of death for people in rural areas and across Hampshire at night will increase if these proposals are implemented.
There has been a significant reduction in the number of emergency incidents attended	They did not increase resources when the number of incidents doubled, trebled and even quadrupled, but they are dishonestly using the recent reduction to justify cuts. Even though there are still twice as many calls as in the 1950s and 1960s, when there were more fire engines and more firefighters available. No fire service has ever decided how many fire engines to provide, and where they should be based, simply on the number of calls expected. Those decisions have always been taken to ensure that fire engines can reach anywhere quickly, and so that larger fires and simultaneous incidents can be properly resourced.
The latest technology to save lives and protect property across Hampshire.	They know that it is firefighters that save lives, not technology, but technology sounds impressive. They hope that people will not realise that cutting crew sizes will endanger public and firefighter lives.
A smaller vehicle that could make a hole in the wall of a burning room, and we would be able to pump water in straight away. This would make it safer for people inside	The equipment has its uses, but the claim that it will help save lives is a deception. The high pressure, abrasive lance, which cuts through concrete, is actually hazardous to people inside. The manufacturers have many years of reports on the effectiveness of their equipment from fire services across Europe. They have confirmed that none of those reports records people inside, or firefighter lives being saved with this equipment. They also don’t mention that responsible fire services add this equipment to their fire engines, so that crews have a range of options available to them. They don’t stick it on vans as a substitute for proper fire engines.
Our standard fire engines (with crews of four to six firefighters) are not always the most appropriate response	They are the most appropriate response, because they can cope with whatever they find when they arrive. Unfortunately, they want to gamble with firefighter and public safety by sending vehicles with less water, equipment and firefighters that will often prove to be totally inadequate for the incident they are faced with.
We propose to introduce four crewing models to effectively match the risk of our stations	They misuse the term ‘risk’, when they are actually talking about frequency of calls. If your home catches fire in a busy station area, you may get a proper fire engine with five firefighters on it arriving quickly, but if it catches fire in a quieter station area you may just get a van with two firefighters on it. But don’t worry, they will be able to hold your hand whilst you all wait for a proper fire engine to arrive from a fire station further away.
More staff on duty when we need them, and less during the periods of lower activity	Periods of lower activity require exactly the same number of firefighters to attend incidents, as they do during busy periods. They want you to think that, miraculously, incidents are somehow less severe during periods of lower activity. They are not. In fact they are often more severe in the quiet early hours, because no one sees the fire until it becomes a serious one, so more resources are required, not less.
Incident statistics	The incident figures shown for each station are quite misleading, as they do not show the actual workload for each fire station. They don’t show calls to standby at other stations, relief crew calls, or calls in to neighbouring counties. They also don’t show the community safety and prevention work that the crews do. Emsworth for example are shown as attending 66 incidents in 2013/14. No over the border incidents are shown, yet in 2014/15 Emsworth attended 55 incidents in West Sussex. They also provided cover at West Sussex fire stations on 19 occasions.

Hampshire Fire Cuts Threaten West Sussex Residents

This photo is a stark reminder of why we need a speedy response by full crews on proper fire engines. 

A news release has now been issued:

Fire service cuts campaigners are warning that West Sussex residents, who live near the Hampshire border, will face increased dangers from an inadequate fire service response. West Sussex County Council pay Hampshire Fire Authority to deal with emergencies in that area, because their fire stations are nearer. Hampshire Fire Authority now say they plan to remove SEVEN of the NINE fire engines nearest to the West Sussex border and replace them with inadequate vehicles.

Two of those vehicles will be ‘Intermediate Vehicles’, which are small Fire Engines carrying less water, less equipment and less firefighters. The other five will only be ‘First Response Vehicles’, which carry even less water, less equipment and less firefighters. Instead of four to six firefighters on a proper fire engine, these will respond with as few as two firefighters.

Speaking for campaigners, retired firefighter Tony Morris said, “That may be OK for a dustbin fire, but for building fires these inadequate crews will only be able to watch and wait for help to arrive on proper fire engines. Many residents, in an area that includes Southbourne, West Marden, South Harting, Rogate, Milland and Linchmere, will be left with a second or third class service from Hampshire”.

Mr Morris urged people to respond to the Hampshire consultation, which is due to start on 14 September. He said, “This is a double blow for residents in this area after Bosham fire station was closed and second fire engines were removed from Midhurst and Petworth. Hampshire fire engines often provide support in the Midhurst, Chichester and Manhood areas, so proper resources will take longer to arrive there too. West Sussex County Council must also tell residents how they will properly protect people living in these areas, if Hampshire make these cuts”.

Commenting on Hampshire Fire Authority claims that “the safety of the public and our firefighters remains our absolute priority”, Mr Morris said, “It is rather like listening to ‘Del Boy’ on his market stall describing inferior goods as the ‘bees knees’. The difference of course is that one may see you waste your money on faulty goods, the other may cost you your home, your business, or your life.”

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Stop the Cuts

Cuts Will Cost Lives

This is what Councillors seem oblivious to and senior officers seem to have forgotten about. 

This rescue in Suffolk at the weekend involved two ladders, at least six firefighters engaged in the rescue and at least eleven firefighters at the incident when the rescue was carried out. 

Crews of four don't cut it and Hampshire's proposed crews of two in a van are a sick joke.

Incidents like this don't happen every day, but no one knows where or when they will happen. 

There is absolutely no doubt, cutting resources will cost lives. Well done to the firefighters involved.

If further confirmation that cuts cost lives is required, just read this:

Gatwick Airport and the Local Authority Fire Service - Some Facts

The discussion on how West Sussex County Council cuts to the fire and rescue service have affected the response to emergencies at Gatwick Airport has thrown up some worrying misconceptions. Not least from County Councillors and, apparently, some fire service officers. This seems to revolve around unrealistic expectations of the airport’s fire and rescue service. Irresponsibly there are those that claim they can deal with any major incident on their own, so let’s look at the facts.

The requirement on the airport operator comes from the Civil Aviation Authority’s ‘CAP 168’, Licensing of Aerodromes, which is based on the International Civil Aviation Organization’s agreed guidance. That says the airport fire service is provided to, “create and maintain survivable conditions, to provide egress routes for occupants and to initiate the rescue of those occupants unable to make their escape without direct aid.”

You will note that for rescue it only requires them to “initiate” rescue. They go on to say that “the saving of those occupants unable to make their escape without direct aid may be a long and arduous task”. They also make clear that on occasions this will involve the use of specialized equipment and personnel not part of the airport fire service. Something that was well illustrated by the Kegworth crash that required over 100 local authority firefighters and 22 fire engines.

That is why there are several references in CAP 168 to “Local Authority Fire Services”. The CAA does not require airports to provide resources to fully deal with crashes, just to provide the immediate response. It even reminds airport operators that, “At all incidents it should be remembered that the Local Authority Fire Service has statutory obligations to fulfil.” Something that West Sussex County Council has tried to ignore.

The emphasis in CAP 168 is on an airport fire service that can arrive quickly and extinguish any fire that results from a crash. The number of vehicles and personnel required are determined by that objective. In some cases that will be sufficient to allow all survivors to escape unaided, but where there is significant damage, then rapid reinforcement of the airport fire service will be essential.

There is no requirement for the airport to have the sort of heavy duty rescue equipment that is carried on the West Sussex Heavy Rescue Tenders (HRT). That is why the failure to ensure that Crawley’s HRT attends warnings of aircraft in trouble is so worrying. Made worse by the fact that, when an alert is received, all the personnel from Crawley are sent on their standard fire engines, which leaves the HRT with no crew. So, if there is a crash, another HRT will have to travel at least 35 miles to the airport.

It also needs to be remembered that there is a busy railway line at the end of the runway. The potential for an aircraft to hit one or more commuter trains is ever present. There could be many hundreds of casualties as a result, yet WSCC’s cuts culture is deemed more important than the survival of passengers and crew in a crash at Gatwick. The reduction in the response to the most serious warning, “Aircraft Accident Imminent”, from 10 to just 6 fire engines is wholly unjustified.

Gatwick Airport, for the most part, meet their obligations under CAP 168. The main concern is that they may not have adjusted their emergency plan to take account of both the cuts and WSCC’s dreadful failure to properly crew their remaining fire engines. With part time crewed fire engines often being unavailable, resources will have to travel much further and take far too long to arrive.

The removal of the HRT and other special vehicles from the response to alerts that aircraft are in trouble flies in the face of proper risk assessment. West Sussex send an Aerial Ladder Platform from Horsham or Worthing to warnings of aircraft in trouble, just in case the aircraft is an A380. That is fair enough, but to not send the HRT that would be essential for a serious crash involving any aircraft suggests a total lack of logic when carrying out risk assessments, or a complete lack of understanding of aircraft crashes.

A Gatwick Airport spokesperson is reported to have said, "Gatwick has its own on-airport fire service that is fully equipped and resourced to deal with major incidents." A spokesperson who clearly has no idea of CAP 168, of the potential scale of an aircraft crash, or of the level of resources at the airport. No doubt WSCC will also soon provide false, unsubstantiated reassurance to the public with yet more ‘spin’.

COUNCIL RISK PASSENGER LIVES AT GATWICK AIRPORT

Press Release circulated yesterday:

The West Sussex Fire & Rescue Stop the Cuts group is concerned that survival chances for passengers and crew, in the event of a crash at Gatwick Airport, have been seriously reduced by County Council cuts to the fire service. A spokesperson said, “Not only have the cuts put 800,000 residents in greater danger, but millions of passengers who use the airport each year will be doubly unlucky if they are in a crash at Gatwick”.

The spokesperson continued, “We all hope we are not involved in an aircraft crash, but there are several around the World every year. When it happens we rely on the emergency services arriving quickly to rescue survivors from the wreckage. Sadly the response from West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service is now slower and smaller than ever, despite aircraft now carrying more people”.

The spokesperson added, “The airport is not responsible, as they have an effective fire service, but for crashes they need significant support from local emergency services. The only criticism of the airport is that, according to the County Council, they raised no objections to the cuts[1]”.

Retired Fire Service Operational Planning Officer Tony Morris said, “Not only do the cuts affect survival chances at the airport, but if a plane comes down beyond their very small response area, the airport’s fire service does not respond. Survivors would then be totally reliant on the hopelessly inadequate local fire service response. Firefighters would do their best, but the odds would be stacked against them”

West Sussex County Council cuts include:

• The two nearest fire engines to the airport could reach the airport in two minutes, but they were removed in the last round of cuts.
• The next nearest fire engines at Crawley have just been cut from three to two.
• Response to the most serious category of emergency has been cut from ten fire engines to just six, despite aircraft now carrying more passengers. Other essential specialist vehicles have also been removed from the automatic response.
• Together with cuts in crew numbers, instead of around 90 firefighters being sent, less than 50 will arrive. Yet they know that at the Kegworth crash in 1989, over 100 hundred firefighters were needed to rescue the 82 injured survivors.
• The Heavy Rescue Tender, with specialist rescue equipment, is no longer sent when emergencies are declared. Gatwick is now the only international airport in Europe not to get a specialist rescue vehicle from their local fire service when aircraft are in trouble.
• Even worse, when an emergency is declared the two fire engines from Crawley are sent, but no firefighters are left to crew the Heavy Rescue Tender. If a crash then occurs another vehicle will have to be sent from 35 miles away.
• Whilst they have stopped sending this rescue vehicle, they do send a high reach aerial appliance, just in case the aircraft is a large Airbus A380. To do that, but not send the rescue vehicle, which would be essential at any crash, makes no sense and indicates that professional judgement is either flawed, or cuts are forcing these dangerous changes.
• Foam supplies have been removed from the nearest station to the airport and now have to be sent from 50 miles away. Last time these were sent to an emergency at the airport they took over an hour and a quarter to arrive.
• Inadequate crewing across West Sussex also means that many of the nearest fire engines and support vehicles are often unavailable. As many as 16 of the nearest 22 fire engines have been without crews on occasions, and response times have increased dramatically.
• At a recent incident in Crawley, cuts and inadequate crew levels showed that the nearest ten fire engines included two from Brighton, nearly 30 miles away. With Gatwick located in the Borough this is a disgraceful level of protection.

Mr Morris concluded, “When early warning is received of an aircraft in serious trouble at Gatwick, the public expect the local fire service to be there with enough resources to give them a good chance of survival. It is shameful that West Sussex County Councillors are failing to ensure that happens.”

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Stop the Cuts

ENDS

Further information

Email:               wsfrsstopcuts@aol.com

Web:                wsfrscuts.blogspot.com 

Facebook:        West Sussex Fire & Rescue Stop the Cuts 

NOTES

1. At all the other airports in the UK that handle the Airbus A380 aircraft, the airport authorities have equipped their own fire service with an aerial appliance. Gatwick rely on the local fire service to send one from Horsham (16 miles away), or from Worthing (35 miles away).

2. The Kegworth Comparison – this crash in 1989 involved 118 passengers, 82 of whom were seriously injured. Their rescue required the airport fire service plus 22 fire engines and over 100 firefighters from local fire services.

The latest aircraft using Gatwick include the Airbus A380, versions of which carry over 550 passengers. Instead of increasing the response to cope with the greater challenge, West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service has quite unprofessionally reduced it to the lowest it has been since the 1950s.

3. Tony Morris responded to the Airports Commission consultation to highlight these problems. A copy of his submission is attached below (Annex 1).

Annex 1

From	Tony Morris tonyacmorris@aol.com
To	airports.consultation airports.consultation@systra.com

Important factor omitted from review of possible second runway at Gatwick Airport 

Dear Mr Davies,

I am writing to you as an individual. I am now retired, but was an Emergency Planning Officer for West Sussex County Council (1999 to 2014) and before that the Operational Planning Officer for West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (1993 to 1999). In both posts I worked closely with other emergency services and the airport operator on planning for all types of major emergency at Gatwick.

There appears to have been an important omission in the debate regarding a possible second runway at Gatwick Airport. That omission concerns consideration of the ability of hospitals, the emergency services, local authorities etc. to cope with an aircraft accident, or other major incident at the Airport.

I believe this aspect is even more vital than the infrastructure to support the airport. It is becoming increasingly clear that these services are less well able to respond to an incident at Gatwick than previously, primarily as a result of budget cuts. Whilst I am less familiar with their ability at Heathrow, I believe they have significantly more resources close to the airport. In addition, whereas West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service (WSFRS) has removed the two nearest fire engines to Gatwick and intend to remove the third nearest, London Fire Brigade has increased resources in the vicinity of Heathrow. The attached maps illustrate the disparity between the airports with regard to the location of supporting fire stations.

It is quite clear that the ambulance service and hospitals in Sussex are struggling to cope with winter pressures, so their potential to also cope with hundreds of casualties from an air crash must be in serious doubt. Sussex Police have also suffered staffing cuts that affect their ability to deal with major emergencies. The ability of West Sussex County Council's Social Care department to provide support to uninjured survivors and relatives of the injured or deceased is another vital service that has been affected by budget cuts. 

The latest aircraft using Gatwick include the Airbus A380, versions of which carry over 550 passengers. When you consider that the aircraft involved in the Kegworth air crash in 1989 was only carrying 118 passengers, you get an idea of the significantly greater demand on local services if a larger aircraft crashes at Gatwick. At Kegworth 82 people were seriously injured and it took over seven hours to free them all from the wreckage. The local authority fire service needed 22 fire engines and over 100 firefighters at the incident.

It should also be borne in mind that the Civil Aviation Authority say that planning should consider more than one aircraft being involved in an accident, and the surroundings of the Airport should also be taken in to account. With a busy commuter line at the end of the runway, an aircraft collision with a crowded commuter train must also be considered. Casualties could run in to the thousands at Gatwick.

West Sussex Fire & Rescue Service's cuts and crewing difficulties have made the fire and rescue service much less able to cope than in previous years. The well publicised emergency landing at Gatwick Airport at the end of December showed that, instead of resources increasing to cope with increased risk, they have actually been reduced. The time taken to get resources to the airport has increased significantly, as they have to be sent from stations much further away. The proposed 2015-16 cuts will make this even worse.

When aircraft carried fewer passengers, WSFRS were able to get the full response to the airport by sending fire engines from fire stations that were within 13 miles of the airport. At the 29th December 2014 incident, despite having reduced the scale of the response, it had to come from fire stations up to 40 miles from the Airport. A special vehicle carrying foam, that used to be at the nearest fire station to the airport, took an hour and a quarter to arrive in December. A specialist rescue vehicle is no longer sent automatically, because of crewing shortages. If an aircraft does crash, then that rescue vehicle will have to be sent from at least 30 miles away.  With the potential for several hundred trapped and injured casualties, that is just not acceptable.

Please note that the Airport Fire Service depend heavily on support from WSFRS. The Airport Fire Service is only required to provide a full response to crashed aircraft within the airport boundary, and a reduced response to crashed aircraft very near to the airport. Beyond that small area, the survival of casualties is wholly dependent on an increasingly under resourced local authority fire and rescue service.

This situation is unacceptable for one runway, but I appreciate that is beyond your control. However, recommending a second runway at Gatwick would increase capacity and the likelihood of an accident. To do so, whilst aware of the poor state of the local services to respond, would seem most unwise.

I would urge you to properly consider this aspect before deciding on your recommendation regarding Airport expansion.

Yours sincerely,

  

Tony Morris

Proximity of fire stations

Heathrow

Gatwick

Please note that Surrey Fire & Rescue Service are building a fire station at Salfords, for one fire engine, about five miles from the Airport.

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[1] Report by Executive Director Communities, Public Protection and Chief Fire Officer – “The Service has met with the Gatwick Airport Fire Service Manager, who raised no objections to the proposals".