Shropshire fire bosses launch legal challenge against takeover by police commissioner

Shropshire and Wrekin Fire & Rescue Authority has voted unanimously to seek leave for a judicial review of the decision taken in March by former Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

The fire authority has taken legal advice and will challenge the decision on three main grounds:

• "That the Police and Crime Commissioner's (PCC) consultation paper was misleading, particularly in regard to cost-saving claims."

• "That the former Home Secretary was incorrect to say that an independent assessment of the PCC’s business case found that the proposed governance would not affect public safety when in fact an independent report identified three potential public safety issues."

• "That the then Home Secretary was wrong to consider three key issues contained in the PCC’s original business case – economy, efficiency and effectiveness – as a single issue when they should have been demonstrated and considered separately. "

The authority said that In a three-month consultation process conducted by the PCC and since described as “misleading” by fire authority lawyers, 60.9 per cent per cent of respondents voted to support the proposal.

But in a poll conducted over just one day by the Shropshire Star that attracted a similar number of responses, 83 per cent of respondents said 'No' when asked if they agreed with control of the fire service in Shropshire being handed over to the PCC, it said.

The fire authority’s vice-chair, Councillor Keith Roberts, said: “The authority strongly believes that people were misled by the PCC’s consultation questionnaire because it claimed switching control of the fire service to the PCC would result in savings of £4 million and that this claim influenced the way people voted.

“We very much regret having to take this action but we have been left with no choice.”