Ashfield District Council's leader has said he is "confident" the area's fire station will return to being a full-time one as Nottinghamshire's Chief Fire Officer draws up proposals for the site's future. Ashfield fire station lost its full-time crew in 2018 and since that time, it has been operating from 8am until 6pm with 12 full-time firefighters, then relying on on-call firefighters outside of that timeframe.
Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service at the time of the 2018 arrangements said the alternative would have been redundancies or station closures, but it then said last December that it could invest £660,000 in returning Ashfield to a full-time station. This sum of money is the amount that would have been saved by removing the night-time shift from West Bridgford instead.
But the West Bridgford plans sparked controversy and they have now been officially dropped at a meeting of the Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire and Rescue Authority on Friday (February 24). Despite dropping that plan, as well as proposals to take fire engines away from the London Road and Stockhill stations, Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service is continuing to look at the future of Ashfield fire station.
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In particular, Friday's meeting unanimously backed a recommendation which read: "To instruct the Chief Fire Officer to swiftly work up and implement proposals at Ashfield fire station to address the identified gap in resourcing to risk faced by the community in Ashfield." Councillor Jason Zadrozny, Ashfield District Council's leader, said after the meeting: "This isn't a favour we're asking for, we're asking them to deliver what's there on an evidence basis.
"There have already been a number of fire deaths in Ashfield, a lot of very delayed responses to fires, and now the fire chief has heard very loudly that we're saying 'bring the report back swiftly and then implement it' so I am very hopeful. Of course it's not a done deal yet, it will have to come back through ratification. But I am as confident as I can be that within six to eight months, we will see a whole-time crew back at Ashfield."
Chief Fire Officer Craig Parkin said no final decision on Ashfield fire station's future had been made yet and said he could not give an estimated time by which proposals for the site will have been drawn up. He said: "I think it's doable at the moment, but I can't give guarantees to it. From the middle of March, we'll know exactly what money we're playing with.
"The reality is we're dealing with people's lives, are they going to be working in different positions or not, different locations. We've got a lot of work to do."
Labour's Councillor Michael Payne, who chairs the fire authority, said on the subject of Ashfield fire station during Friday's meeting: "The chief has got to think about a proposal, but why should we be treating the community in Ashfield any differently to the communities around Stockhill, London Road or West Bridgford. They deserve to be treated with exactly the same respect that we're treating those other communities.
"There is a significant anxiety in the Ashfield community, they need to be given some surety by this decision that the strength of the service and the support provided to residents in Ashfield will return to where it was previously. Obviously the Chief Fire Officer's got to work up proposals and bring them back, but we're making a decision here today and we're giving a very clear indication about where we stand as an authority."
Speaking about why Ashfield needed to become a full-time station again, Cllr Zadrozny added: "I've always said that Ashfield needs its service not at the detriment of others, but there's a financial envelope and I need Ashfield to be serviced.
"It is servicing the biggest district in Nottinghamshire, it's servicing the M1 corridor from junction 26 to 29, it's really strategically important. Ashfield is an odd district, it's made up of three towns, 20 villages, and Ashfield station is smack in the middle.
"If you're a long way, Selston or Stanton Hill, it's already eight or nine minutes for a fire appliance to get to you if you're in trouble. If people have got to get to the fire station first, and then get to you, that really adds fear."
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