We are now almost half-way through the 12-week public consultation into the downgrading of Helensburgh Fire Station and the loss of full-time firefighters at Weekends and Overnight. Thank you to everyone who has registered their opposition so far and signed the petition.
If you have not yet engaged with the public consultation to register your opposition to the plans, please do so.
We need as many responses as possible to make as strong a case as we can so, please take 5 minutes to complete the questionnaire, filling in the required fields and opposing the plans specifically relating to Helensburgh Fire Station’s proposed downgrading to Day Crewing (No full-time crew at night and weekends).
Please remember the following when submitting your objection.
1. The downgrading presents an unacceptable increase in response times to thousands of people who live on the urban/rural interface where response times can already be higher due to distance and remoteness. This represents a dangerous increase in risk to public and firefighter safety, especially considering the homes planned for this area and the increase in size of the workforce and risks associated with the area’s locality to Naval facilities such as Faslane and Coulport.
2. Associated documents using the SFRS own data has identified that an increase in response time has taken place since the formation of SFRS in 2013 exacerbated by a recruitment and retention issue nationally within the provision of On-Call firefighters
3. Helensburgh is not being rebuilt to the current crewing model due to funding issues with the SFRS answer to RAAC across Scotland being to downgrade and close or downgrade those fire stations instead of re-building. The downgrade of Helensburgh fire station would allow a smaller, less costly alternative to be built. Despite this, work carried out recently within Helensburgh Fire Station will extend the life span of the building and has remedied the safety issues within Helensburgh Fire Station presented by RAAC. The only acceptable solution is to rebuild a fire station fit for the 21st Century in Helensburgh, to continue to ensure the safety of our rapidly growing communities and ensuring that Firefighters can decontaminate safely and correctly to reduce exposure to the occupational cancers and illness which plague their profession.
4. Whilst the Fire Service will still retain 2 appliances at Helensburgh those fire appliances cannot operate without qualified and trained staff. Without those staff being in the current full-time crewing model response times will rise considerably. SFRS have continually accepted that this is a disbenefit of the changes but seem happy to accept this, you should not!
Submit your objections here:
Please also continue to support us by sharing our petition and supporting us in Opposing the Cuts at Helensburgh Fire Station