Firefighters won’t be able to do their job safely with a reduction in locally available crewed appliances.  Response times will increase, buildings will be lost and people may lose their lives who could have been saved.

Presently, Cumbernauld Fire Station is crewed by two Wholetime appliances that are crewed 24hrs a day 7 days a week.  As part of the SFRS Service Delivery Review it is proposed that the second Wholetime crew is removed and replaced with a crew on a Day Shift Duty System crewed 08:00 to 18:00 each week day and an On-Call crew, available remotely from home or their primary workplace via pager at night and at the weekend.  

The SFRS know it is difficult maintain the operational availability of On-Call crews and this is regularly demonstrated with the local crews at Kilsyth and Stepps being unable to maintain a crew due to lack of available personnel. This results in the majority of incidents in these areas falling to the crews at Cumbernauld Fire Station to attend as the first and quickest resource.  It is highly likely that these same On-Call crewing difficulties will be experienced at Cumbernauld potentially leaving the Cumbernauld, Moodiesburn, Chryston, Muirhead, Stepps and Kilsyth areas to be covered by a single appliance at Cumbernauld at night and at weekends.

Cumbernauld is a rapidly growing community.  More residential properties are being built along with commercial retail parks and industrial areas and it is for this reason that maintaining fire cover is a critical concern for the residents of Cumbernauld.  The proposed reduction of crucial firefighting resources in our community will undoubtedly increase response times of attending resources which in turn increases the risk to life and property as well as the risk to Firefighter safety.

Please join us in calling on the SFRS to prioritise the safety of Cumbernauld residents by signing this petition.  Together, we can ensure that our community remains protected and that our Firefighters have the resources they need to save lives.