Kenilworth and Southam MP voices concerns over proposed changes to Warwickshire's fire service

The MP for Kenilworth and Southam has voiced his concerns over the proposed changes to Warwickshire's fire service.

Warwickshire County Council’s (WCC) plan is to change work patterns to better cover higher-risk times and areas throughout the day rather than at night when there is less demand.

The deadline for the public consultation into the proposals ended on Sunday March 10 - and Jeremy Wright MP was one of many people and local organisations who have expressed caution.

He concluded: "I remain concerned...that a persuasive case has not yet been made for these proposals."

Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service says it wants to reconfigure how staffing works in line with need and dropping availability of people taking on on-call roles. However, Mr Wright says not enough is being done to recruit more retained firefighters.

Part of the proposals is to turn on-call stations at Bidford-on-Avon, Henley, Kenilworth, Shipston-on-Stour, Fenny Compton and Polesworth into 'surge stations', which the council’s report describes as teams that will be “available for recall in the event of significant incidents or periods of high demand”.

The current day wholetime team at Gaydon is also proposed to become a surge team.

In response, Mr Wright said: "There are differing estimates of how often such (surge) stations would actually be used under the new model, but given the concerns about lack of availability leading to low frequency of response from retained stations which have triggered these proposals for change, there must be a concern that the low frequency of use proposed for surge stations will lead to further proposals to close those stations altogether."

Mr Wright also says the data used by the fire service varies from the data used in a Fire Inspectorate report covering Warwickshire for the same period, and he has concerns that the numbers were collected during a period which includes Covid-affected years.

He added: "Based on the data used, on two obvious measures of benefit the outcomes are mixed or marginal. They will save little money to be reinvested in the service, if any.

"On the measure many will care about most – response times for appliances reaching incidents – granular data on the areas surrounding the stations in my constituency is hard to come by, but it appears that attendance times in south Warwickshire will largely be worse if these proposals are implemented."

Read Jeremy Wright’s full statement here.

Warwickshire County Council leader Cllr Izzi Seccombe and Cllr Andy Crump, the county’s portfolio holder for fire and rescue and community safety, said that there would be no station closures.

But Cllr Crump spoke about the “reluctance” of volunteers for the right times, meaning that something had to change. He said: “People have busier lives, they do different things, and there are work pressures as well.

“Many employers who value their staff find it difficult to release them to attend and be an on-call firefighter.

“We have to change, the climate appears to have changed so we have to be more reactive and reflective as a vibrant and efficient fire and rescue service.”