Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service has officially confirmed it wants to return the Ashfield Fire Station to 24-hour cover. Campaigners have been fighting to return the station to a full service since initial cuts were made in 2018.
Since 2018, Ashfield has been operating from 8am until 6pm with 12 full-time firefighters, then relying on on-call firefighters outside of that timeframe. The Leader of Ashfield District Council, Councillor Jason Zadrozny, claimed "lives would be lost" if a full service wasn't returned to the station.
But plans will now be discussed at a meeting of the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Authority on Friday (July 14) to bring a full service back to Ashfield. Twelve extra crew members are needed to bring 24-hour cover back, but the fire service plans are to instead bring them back using the current staffing levels at the station.
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Papers being presented at the meeting say the cost of 12 more crew members would cost around £600,000, a figure the service says is "not viable." The fire service therefore says there may be a "greater" number of occasions where fire engines are crewed by four firefighters.
Councillor Zadrozny, who is also a member of the Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Authority, said he was “delighted” by the news. He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "I would like to thank the thousands of residents who joined the Ashfield Independent campaign for a full-time fire station.
"We always said, the decision to move to a part-time station in 2018 was the wrong one. I was the only councillor to vote against this at the time.
"We instigated the Fire Service review, led Ashfield’s response to the consultation and never gave up. It’s another example of working with communities to deliver positive results that makes lives safer. This is why we do this job – I am delighted."
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue initially said last December that £600,000 could be invested in returning Ashfield to a full-time station, money which would have been saved by removing the night shift from West Bridgford instead.
But these plans also sparked controversy and were later dropped. Despite this, the fire service said in February it would draw up plans to bring back a full service at Ashfield.
Councillor Helen-Ann Smith, the Deputy leader of Ashfield District Council, added: "We promised residents that we would fight for a full-time station and have delivered on this promise. We have been advised that this will cut response time in Ashfield and the surrounding area by at least a minute. It might not sound a lot but could be the difference in saving lives."
