Views are sought on cuts to fire service

PEOPLE in South Yorkshire are to be asked their views on changes within the fire service that could see 140 jobs lost and a shake-up in the location of fire stations.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority chairman Jim Andrews said that “nobody wished to make changes to service provision” but, faced with a Government budget cut of up to £10m by 2015, frontline cuts were “inevitable.”

Up to £3m is already set to be saved at the service through 25 per cent cuts in management and administration costs, but more than £7m still needs to be saved from elsewhere.

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As a result, the authority has now agreed to put a number of proposed changes out to a 14-week public consultation.

New fire stations would be built near the Sheffield Parkway and at Birley, to replace Darnall, Mansfield Road and Mosborough fire stations.

Retained crews at Edlington in Doncaster would also be lost, Royston fire station in Barnsley would close and a new “close proximity crewing” model would be brought in at up to six existing stations, starting with Lowedges.

Temporary chief fire officer Jamie Courtney said the changes would have “minimal impact” on emergency response.

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The changes would produce a saving of around £2.25m per year through the loss of 68 full-time firefighter posts and 32 retained firefighter posts. Other internal staffing changes would remove a further 40 full-time firefighter posts, saving a further £1.75m. All of these full-time firefighter posts, however, would be lost through “natural wastage” rather than redundancies.

Mr Courtney said: “We have recommended the changes which we think will have the minimum impact on the public.

“We are happy to listen to any alternative ways of saving this money but the fact is we are losing around £10m in Government funding.”

The public consultation will end in February next year.

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