Cost-cutting threat to Shropshire fire station

Deputy chief fire officer John Redmond told a meeting last night that one of the fire stations being looked at was Clun in the south of the county.

He said Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service had already slashed £4 million from its budget because of a predicted 25 per cent cut in Government cash between 2010 and 2020.

But he told a meeting of Bishop's Castle, Chirbury & Worthen and Clun Local Joint Committee (LJC) that fire chiefs still needed to chop between £1.2m and £1.6m between 2015 and 2020. Mr Redmond said closing stations was one of 60 possibilities currently being assessed by fire bosses to find the cash.

Addressing the meeting at Worthen Village Hall, he said: "We currently have 23 fire stations across Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin.

"Most of them are staffed by on-call or retained firefighters and they provide a fantastic service. But we are looking at reducing the number of fire stations, one of which is Clun."

There are currently 13 retained firefighters at Clun and Mr Redmond admitted it was an "extremely well run station".

He said it was beating service targets of attending 87 per cent of call-outs within 15 minutes, and added that the crew had carried out more than 500 home fire safety checks in the town to try and prevent blazes breaking out.

But he added: "We have to look at a risk assessment, to look at areas where there are for instance large amounts of hazardous chemicals, or big hotels. Across all 23 fire stations, unfortunately there has to be ones that are bottom in terms of lowest risk. Clun comes out at the bottom."

There are currently four stations – Shrewsbury, Telford Central, Tweedale and Wellington – manned on a full-time basis, and five fire engines. The fire chief said one of the options being considered was to reduce the number of vehicles.

He said: "Eighty five per cent of our budget is made up of people.One of the options we are looking at is reducing the number of pumps from five to four.

"Full-time firefighters are quite expensive, so that is one of the options we are looking at, to reduce the number of full-time pumps." The findings of the risk assessments would be presented to the Fire Authority in the autumn of this year.