Fire service cuts plans on hold after protest

Fire service bosses have postponed putting plans to the public which could see five Kent fire stations shut.

A 12-week consultation, set to start on Thursday, has been pushed back by Kent and Medway Fire and Rescue Authority (KMFRA) to consider the plans further.

The decision to delay the consultation followed more than 200 firefighters marching to KMFRA's headquarters on Thursday before its annual meeting in Tovil, Kent.

The proposals have been called "deeply concerning" by Dartford MP Jim Dickson, while the Fire Brigades Union [FBU] said the changes amounted to a cut to the local response immediately available for several communities.

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service union bosses feared 76 part-time "on-call" roles could go with the cuts. The FBU has not ruled out industrial action.

Kent Fire and Rescue Service boss Ann Millington had said the move was about "spending money in the right ways to tackle our biggest risks while competing with financial pressures".

On Thursday KMFRA, the fire service's governing body, agreed for a cross-party group to consider the plans more closely ahead of an extraordinary meeting for members to vote again on whether to go ahead with the consultation.

Millington said: "There is a significant amount of data for members of the authority to consider.

"Members of the authority will be able to examine the proposals before them.

"We will be working closely in the next few weeks with a cross-party group to support their analysis."

The proposals included closing five on-call fire stations in Grain, Wye, Chilham, Westerham and Cliffe because of "lower demand and lower risk" than other areas.

Millington said previously: "We don't close fire stations lightly, and we haven't done so in 14 years.

"When we did it last, we were able to reinvest our money and use it more effectively.

"We will have targeted prevention activity in areas affected by station closures."

On-call stations differ from whole-time stations as the crew go to their station when they are called out by pager to attend an emergency. Whole-time stations operate 24 hours a day.

Other possible measures include removing on-call sections from four whole-time stations, and relocating two fire engines at night to free up three fire engines during the day in a bid to better match demand.

Ahead of KMFRA's meeting, Dickson warned the move would cut available fire engines at night from two to one in Dartford and Thameside, despite being among the busiest fire stations in Kent.

He said: "These proposals are poorly thought out and create additional risk for Dartford."

The FBU dubbed the plans a "reduction program presented as modernisation".

It said: "The authority's own plans identify increasing and more complex risk... yet the response to those risks is to close stations, remove attached appliances, and reduce night-time whole time cover."

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