Shropshire Fire Service jobs will go in cuts

Shropshire's Fire Chief, Paul Raymond, said making changes was "difficult"

Around 50 firefighter jobs will go in Shropshire as the fire service attempts to address funding cuts.

Shropshire and Wrekin Fire Authority has agreed to freeze its share of the household council tax bill but will make cuts in other areas.

The cost of running the service will remain the same at £1.61 a week for the average householder for the next financial year.

But firefighter and support staff jobs will be cut to cope with budget cuts.

Chief Fire Officer Paul Raymond said the service planned to reduce operational officer and firefighter numbers of 600 by around 50 as well as reducing costs and staff numbers across support services.

'Difficult to achieve'

He added: "We have plans in place to spread our budget reductions over four years.

"This will enable us to make changes in a controlled fashion and, as far as possible, minimise impact on the way we deliver our services to the community.

"However this will be very difficult to achieve."

As well as council tax, the other element of funding that the service receives is from a government grant, the details of which were announced in December 2010.

The service will see "significant" reductions in the money it gets which means it will have to cut more than £3m from its current £21m annual budget by 2015.