Urgent review of Norfolk emergency fire cover called for

12.00.00am GMT Thu 8th Nov 2007

Map showing where emergency fire cover shortages are occurring

Concerns that Norfolk lives could be at risk due to a lack of emergency fire cover have prompted calls for an urgent review into the adequacy of services across the County.

A firefighter availability notification system called Rappel, which has been in place since 2005, enables fire service managers to see at any time of the day which fire stations are available to respond to emergency calls. Recent results provided by the Rappel system have shown recurring gaps in cover at fire stations across Norfolk, and particularly in the west of the County. Data appear to show that there is a recurrent problem of fire appliances in the County not being fully operational because of a lack of retained firefighters available to crew them.

Cllr David Callaby, who is the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Fire and Community Protection at Norfolk County Council, is extremely troubled by this information and is concerned that the situation does not appear to be improving despite work undertaken to address the issue. He says:

"Information provided by the Rappel system shows that there are major gaps in cover appearing at some of Norfolk's fire stations. For me this implies risk for the areas of the county where insufficient cover is available and risk for the retained firefighters who are repeatedly attending call outs with an insufficient number of crew. It also means that the work of some full time firefighters is being impeded as they are having to move out to other stations to cover gaps.

"It is vital that work is undertaken now to ensure the people of Norfolk are getting the services they need to keep them safe. Given the tragic events in Warwickshire where four retained firefighters have lost their lives we must also be careful to do all we can to ensure Norfolk's firefighters are being sent out with the full support that we owe them."

Fire and rescue services in Norfolk are overseen and funded by Norfolk County Council. Mr Callaby, who is county councillor for Fakenham, will be asking questions about the fire cover situation at the next meeting of the Council's Fire and Community Protection Review Panel.

He will also be calling for scrutiny into the sufficiency of retained fire cover in Norfolk. If agreed, he hopes that this work will identify how significant the problem is, what the contributory factors are, whether the problem is caused or exacerbated by financial pressure and therefore whether total funding for the service needs to be reviewed.