A plan to cut 24-hour cover at Sale Community Fire Station has come under attack from Trafford's Liberal Democrat group. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service is this week launching a public consultation on proposals for a ‘day crew model’ at both Sale and Offerton in Stockport on the grounds that they are the third and second lowest risk areas respectively in the city region.
The consultation period expires on July 10, but Trafford’s council’s Liberal Democrat group is already protesting against the plan.
Timperley Central Coun Shaun Ennis said: “These proposals are absolutely unthinkable. They will make parts of Trafford, including Timperley less safe.
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“I want to see them rejected and for Sale fire station to retain its 24-hour status.”
Day-crewing is a system that requires operational firefighters to work a combination of hours on station and hours ‘on-call’, rather than having the station crewed continuously, 24 hours per day.
Crews, which currently immediately respond during station hours, would provide up to a four-minute delayed response during on-call hours.
For the on-call period, crews are provided with a phone that alerts them to an incident and they then make their way to the fire station.
On-call cover can only be provided by staff who live within a four-minute response area of the station.
The proposals, which the Liberal Democrats say represent 'a clear cut to frontline fire services', come despite Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham raising taxes to pay for police and fire services in the region.
Coun Ennis continued: “Back in January, Mr Burnham told us that he didn’t want to hike taxes during the cost-of-living crisis, but that he had to in order to avoid cuts to frontline services.
“Here we are in June being presented with those very cuts, all the same. I sincerely hope that residents of Timperley and Sale use the consultation period to make their voices heard.”
There was a £3.33 per year, or 6.4 pence per week, increase in the fire precept for a Band A property to £50.80 and a £5 per year, or 9.6 pence per week, increase for a band D property to £76.20, this year.
However, a press release published on Mr Burnham’s website said more than 80 per cent of properties in Greater Manchester are in bands A to C, ‘so the vast majority of residents will see a smaller increase’.
In a report GMFRS chief fire officer Dave Russel said: “Taking these steps will bring overall savings of approximately £340,000 a year, which would allow us to increase our funding for other areas, further building our resilience, capacity and capabilities.
“Every four years we carry out a Fire Cover Review and our most recent review took place during 2022-23 alongside a review of our special appliances (the appliances that respond to more complex or specialist incidents) and it is the recommendations from these reviews that we are now consulting upon.
“Our data gives us confidence that we can safely change how we provide round-the-clock cover at two of our fire stations which receive some of our lowest numbers of night-time incidents – Offerton in Stockport and Sale in Trafford.”
A spokesperson for Mr Burnham's office said: “This isn’t about cutting services. The proposals in the review ensure that fire resources are located in the right places to respond to higher-risk areas. There are six other stations in Greater Manchester operating the ‘day crewing’ model and all maintain 24-hour cover.
“As usual, the Liberal Democrats are playing politics with a serious issue. On the one hand they oppose any increase in council tax and precepts and on the other hand they oppose enhanced service provision. This review maintains firefighter numbers above those inherited in 2017 and provides two additional fire appliances to increase cover across Greater Manchester.”
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