Nottinghamshire fire service defends longer response times

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has an average response time of nine minutes and 48 seconds

A fire and rescue service with a response time higher than the national average has said it has lessons to learn and work to do.

Firefighters in Nottinghamshire take an average of nine minutes and 48 seconds to get to an emergency.

The average response time across all fire and rescue services in England is seven minutes and 37 seconds.

Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service said this is partly down to the county being classed as predominately urban.

Mick Sharman, head of response at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, spoke about the latest Home Office figures at a Fire Authority meeting on Friday, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said.

He defended the fire service's position saying Nottinghamshire was being compared with other urbanised cities, which have fewer remote rural areas.

Mick Sharman said it was more useful to compare its figures to services in Derbyshire and Leicestershire

The latest response time figures cover the period from April 2019 to March 2020.

They showed Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service was above the national average for total response times and all three sub-reporting categories - call handling, crew turnout and drive times.

But Mr Sharman said services recorded call times in different ways, meaning the England average "is not comparable".

He said it was better to compare its figures to nearby services in Derbyshire and Leicestershire which both had response times are between nine and 10 minutes.

Despite this, Mr Sharman said: "There are still lessons to be learnt and work for us to do as a service."

He said the service was committed to ensuring that incidents were attended in an average below eight minutes.