Report on 1st October Fire Cuts public meeting

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The chief fire officer is on loan from Bedfordshire to do cuts

They will save £1/2 million by cutting fire-fighters in Nuneaton & Bedworth

Some of this will be invested in small response unit, a next boat and better training. We will be a net loser and the total cost is the same so others will win.

Overall it did seem we have a loss in Nuneaton & Bedworth from 2 fire stations and 75 fire-fighters down to 1 station and 55 fire-fighters.

They will have to close Nuneaton fire station and build one half way between the towns.

WCC leader Alan Farnell refused to reply to the request from MP Mike O’Brian to see a copy of the independent risk assessment. The WCC cabinet community protection member, Richard Hobbs, told the MP and Government minister that the assessment may be too complex for him to understand!

This risk assessment will put a price on our heads and trade off the cost of providing two fire stations against lives lost. Absolutely key is what assumptions they put in about our fire engines being occupied.

Around half those who spoke were councillors. They all said they were against the cuts. People were allowed to speak twice but the chair of the meeting, Cllr Heatley, ignored my raised hand for half an hour. At 9:20 I was finally allowed to speak after many members of the public complained that I had been ignored. Before this many had left.

I told the meeting that more money needed to be found, as the fire service needs to do new things and more training.  I linked the £1/2 million needed to keep our service with £1/2 million cuts to staff travel expenses that had been dropped on the quite. Staff at WCC are paid an outrageous 55.6p for each mile they drive costing the county millions per year. The plan to cut this to 40p/mile was to save £500,000 each year. Instead of cutting staff expenses they are cutting Nuneaton & Bedworth fire-fighters.

This morning Alan Farnell came on the radio and said Nuneaton was losing nothing! The response time if his house was on fire will rise from 5 to 10 mins.

I would like to thank the public at the meeting who demanded that I should be allowed to speak after the Tory Cllr ignored my raised arm for half an hour and allowed other people to speak for a second time. This week I was also not allowed to speak at either the special council meeting or the Abbey ward forum.