A Stewartry fire station is struggling with staffing levels.
Appliances are available at Dalbeattie less than half the time at weekends – and only two-thirds of the time during weekday evenings and nights.
But when this happens “emergency cover is still maintained within Dumfries and Galloway communities through alternative cover and standby arrangements.”
Stewartry firefighters operate on a retained duty system, meaning they are not full-time but on call at certain periods.
Figures prepared for next week’s Stewartry area committee meeting show that between April and September last year, Dalbeattie’s appliance was available 52.44 per cent of the time between 8am and 6pm Monday to Friday and 67.81 per cent of the time on weekday evenings.
During the weekend that figure drops to 48.02 per cent – giving a total availability over the week of 55.9 per cent.
Availability at Castle Douglas and Kirkcudbright is above 90 per cent over the course of the week, but at Gatehouse it is below 75 per cent and in New Galloway it is just over 67 per cent.
In a report for members, Station Commander Claire McNay says there are a number of contributing factors, with the coronavirus pandemic having hit their recruitment programme.
Dumfries and Galloway is now part of a national pilot pre-recruitment engagement programme, which resulted in “a good return of successful candidates” in the Stewartry.
SC McNay notes that Dalbeattie and New Galloway now both have one additional fully trained on call firefighter, with a number of other people across the Stewartry in the early stages of the process.
Other issues include on-call firefighters returning to their main work or changing jobs now that restrictions have lifted, with some businesses perhaps reluctant to let staff attend incidents while they go through the recovery phase.
However the region is the second best performing area in Scotland.
