Councillors have raised concerns over plans to cut the number of fire engines at Harrogate fire station.
North Yorkshire’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, Zoe Metcalfe, has suggested operating just one fire engine at night as opposed to the current two.
Members of the Harrogate and Knaresborough Area Constituency Committee discussed the proposals, which were unveiled as part of a consultation into changes at the fire service.
The station would continue to be resourced with two fire engines during the day but it would have just one appliance from 10pm to 9am, when fewer incidents usually occur.
The move would also see the station lose its tactical response vehicle, which would be moved to an on-call station elsewhere in the county, and a self-rostering staffing system introduced.
Cllr Robert Windass, who spoke at the constituency committee this morning.
Cllr Robert Windass, who is a former fire fighter, said he welcomed the removal of the tactical response unit which he described as a “total waste of time”.
However, he raised concern over the reduction of crews on a night.
He said:
“My worry is at night time. Night time is when most people die in house fires.
“To have one crew going out, there will be another machine coming from another station. But say it was down at the bottom of Woodfield, the next nearest response vehicle is either going to come from Ripon or from Knaresborough.
“Both of them are part-time, what they call “on-call stations”, where they will get a bleeper going off at home and they would have to go down the fire station before that machine turns a wheel.
“So it’s going to take them quite a few minutes to get to the fire. That concerns me.”
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The committee agreed to invite Ms Metcalfe and the chief fire officer to the next meeting to be quizzed by councillors.
Cllr Chris Aldred said the committee had to get it right before it responds to the consultation.
He said:
“It is so important, as Robert has just stated, that we have a second crew.
“Fires may statistically may not happen that often at night, but as Robert has just said, the ones that do lead to deaths.”
The changes are part of Ms Metcalfe’s Risk and Resource Model 2022-2025, which sets out how the fire service will deploy its people, equipment and resources.
Fire officials told a meeting last month that the proposals would help to save £1.5 million a year from 2025.
Jonathan Foster, interim chief fire officer at North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue, said that the proposals were about investing in “protection and prevention”.
He said:
“I stress this very much so, this is about reinvestment back into the on-call duty system to improve overall availability and then also to reinvest in protection and prevention activities so that we can protect the people of North Yorkshire and City of York in a much more effective manner.”
