UPDATED: A revamp of the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service, aimed at improving response times and utilising firefighters more effectively, has been announced this afternoon (Wednesday) with a recommendation to keep all 10 fire stations open.
Following a review of the service, the availability of wholetime firefighters will be spread across 3 fire stations instead of 2 with a minimim of 4 firefighters at Ryde and Sandown for 12 hours a day, and a further 4 wholetimers at Newport 24 hours a day.
Currently, wholetime firefighters are based at Newport around the clock and Ryde for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Sandown is currently a retained-only Station.
The new ‘locality model’ follows a process of managing vacancies, which has enabled the service to reduce the number of firefighters from 58 to 50, without the need for redundancies.
The model is one already used by the council in different areas, plus other agencies including Hampshire Constabulary and the NHS.
A new level of on-call firefighter availability will be introduced with those living within 20 minutes of a station utilised for resilience purposes.
In addition, the council has proposed to spend £940,000 to improve the service’s fleet and equipment, as part of the 2018/19 budget.
Councillor Gary Peace, Cabinet member for community safety and public protection, said:
“I would like to reassure the public that this move is about making our service more effective and efficient, and it would be inappropriate for anyone to suggest otherwise.
“This new way of resourcing firefighters will ensure we can match our crews to meet demand more effectively, meaning we have the right people in the right place at the right time.
“By restructuring the way we use immediately available staff, we’re able to provide a quicker service and carry out more proactive risk-reduction work.”
The latest figures show the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service is slightly below its 80% target of reaching critical incidents within 10 minutes, with certain areas unable to be reached in the short time frame.
The proposal is to go forward to the Isle of Wight Council’s Cabinet on 8th March.
It is recommended that all 10 stations are kept open.
UPDATE THURSDAY – The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) for the Isle of Wight have said that they do not support the preferred option in the Service Review that is to be submitted to the Isle of Wight Council Cabinet next week.
A spokesperson has said:
“The preferred option is based on budget driven changed which detrimentally affect firefighters ability to be effective on first arrival. The FBU do not support the proposed frontline cuts and the risk to firefighters and the public”.
