Engines saved but station cuts still in fire plan

The cuts are being proposed at Buckinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service

Plans to remove fire engines from a county's fire stations have been scaled down.

However, proposals to close two fire stations in Buckinghamshire are still on the table.

Conservative councillors say the county's fire authority has "seen sense" and "backtracked".

The Buckinghamshire and Milton Keynes Fire Authority, which makes decisions on finances and resources, has been approached for a response.

When proposals to shut fire stations at Stokenchurch and Great Missenden first surfaced, the fire authority said those measures came out of "an internal workshop where ideas were discussed".

The service added that the proposals were not supposed to be released to the public as they stood.

The latest version of the cuts proposals has now been published.

The closure of Stokenchurch fire station, which has no crew, is being proposed

The plans relate to the on-call fire service, crewed by retained firefighters who have other jobs but are called in when needed.

The original proposals included two options.

Option one:

• Close Great Missenden and Stokenchurch fire stations

• Remove the single fire engine at Haddenham

• Remove one of the two engines at Beaconsfield, Amersham and Buckingham

• Remove one engine from High Wycombe and West Ashland

Option two:

• No station closures

• Remove one engine at Amersham, Aylesbury, Beaconsfield, Broughton, Buckingham and High Wycombe

• Remove two engines from West Ashland

The plan to remove Haddenham's only fire engine has been dropped

One option will now be presented to the fire authority when it meets on 12 November:

• Close Stokenchurch and Great Missenden fire stations

• Replace the on-call fire engines at Buckingham and Amersham with rural firefighting vehicles

• Replace the on-call fire engine at Beaconsfield with a crew welfare vehicle

• Scrap one West Ashland on-call fire engine and the on-call appliance at High Wycombe

High Wycombe fire station could lose its on-call fire engine

The report on the proposals that members of the authority have now received says that Great Missenden and Stokenchurch fire stations have "not had a crew for many years" and closing the sites would "avoid significant investment costs".

While firefighters were seldom available to crew Haddenham's on-call appliance and attended only one incident last year, there were "concerns about resilience if it were removed".

The leader of the Milton Keynes City Council's Conservative group, Shazna Muzammil said the authority's original proposals had been "hastily changed"

The Conservative group on Milton Keynes City Council said the fire authority had "hastily changed their proposals".

Their leader, Shazna Muzammil, said: "Whilst I am glad they have now decided to keep the same level of capacity at Broughton, they are still intending to reduce the services at West Ashland.

"We will continue to oppose this short-sighted motion."

The authority will decide on 12 November whether to launch a 10-week public consultation on the proposals.