Last month the county council announced that the scheduled date in February for making the decision had been postponed indefinitely.

But after Chief Fire Officer Graeme Smith was asked whether this would affect the hiring of new retained firefighters, the council said this week it would be recruiting in March.

Shotteswell parish council clerk Val Ingram, who has been a staunch campaigner to keep Fenny Compton station open, said she was encouraged by the news.

She said: "I very much believe that a large part of the predicament of less availability was down to the only once-a-year intake introduced in previous years.

"I was concerned this would happen again if no new staff were taken on while this was sorted.

"They only did one intake last March and it would have been well over a year with the possibility of the local election delaying things further."

Ms Ingram believes the council had originally planned to stop recruiting until after decisions on the 'improvement plan' - which included proposals to close stations in Warwick, Kenilworth and Fenny Compton - had been announced.

She said: "This is a good, positive sign because it means they have listened.

"I know there was a lot of cynicism over them delaying the decision, but the whole point of consultation is to consider what people have said and to do it properly."

A Warwickshire County Council spokeswoman said: "Due to the need for further time to analyse the broad scope of responses from the consultation and the impact that this will have on the timescales originally proposed for final decisions on the proposed improvement plan by the full council, the fire and rescue service is taking steps to fill some existing vacancies in the retained duty system to ensure availability of all current operational resources."