Avon Fire and Rescue to cut 32 firefighter posts

Avon Fire and Rescue Service is set to cut 32 firefighter jobs and close at least one station in a bid to make savings.

It said response times would not be affected, although a union said resilience would be compromised.

Fire authority chair Terry Walker said: "We're losing £11m from a total budget of £48m [2010-2018] and therefore we've got to work in a different way."

Its plans include building new stations in "strategic spots" in Bristol.

Fire Brigades Union representative Chris Taylor said: "If we are unfortunate to have more than one major incident at one time there will be serious flaws in the set-up.

"When the government gives £11m less money to the fire service you're bound to find this sort of situation happening."

Merging stations

The jobs cuts are expected to be made through natural wastage, rather than compulsory redundancies.

The fire authority has also confirmed a total of 84 posts could go over the next five years if each stage of the scheme goes ahead.

Part of the plans will see Speedwell Fire Station amalgamated with Kingswood to save £1.2m.

Mr Walker said: "We've got to acquire land in strategic areas of the city where we've got to build larger fire stations to maintain the fire cover across the city as a whole and to keep our response times up."

He said the fire service had applied for £6.8m in government funding to help pay for the new stations but this was rejected.

He added the authority would have to borrow money to acquire the land for the new builds.

For 2013-14 the fire authority set its revenue budget at £44.8m after £2.2m of savings.