What’s happening?

The Nottinghamshire and City of Nottingham Fire Authority has decided to cut our local fire and rescue service. They plan to remove one of the two fire engines at London Road station, and the night shift at West Bridgford fire station (which already only has one fire engine).

Does it matter?

Yes. It will slow response times. They have decided which stations to cut by predicting the average increase in time taken to respond to fires across the whole County and City. But no incident is ‘average’ to the people affected.

We need to know how the longest response times, not the average response times, will change. What happens when there are two fires one night? 

Why is it happening? 

Because of cuts from central government.

Since 2010 Conservative government cuts have led to us having nearly 10,000 fewer firefighters in England (a drop of nearly 20.4%). 

But things are even more dire in Nottinghamshire, where the number of firefighters has fallen by 28% since 2010, and the budget has been cut by £9.6 million in real cash terms (more if you take account of inflation). 

The Tory government allowed 8 other Fire & Rescue authorities to increase band D council tax by £5, but BLOCKED Nottinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service doing the same. 

But things are even worse than that. This year government only provided a one year funding settlement for Fire & Rescue authorities, which makes it hard for fire chiefs to plan properly. And the Tory’s ideological pursuit of ‘cutting red tape’ led to wide-scale failings in building safety across the country.

The Tory government is failing in its primary duty to protect us, and it’s only going to get worse. They say they want to make further cuts in public spending this autumn, but services are already cut to the bone.

What can you do? 

1.    Please respond to the Fire Service consultation 

2.    Write to Ruth Edwards, the person who is currently our MP, at House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA (ruth.edwards.mp@parliament.uk), asking her to persuade the government to provide more money to save West Bridgford Fire Station.  

3.    Sign the petition below, which we will take to the County and also send to the MP. (Make sure you fill in the consultation above too!) [Note: we will not be keeping any of the data from this petition, we will just give the petition straight to County Hall]. 

Petition to Nottinghamshire County Council

We are very concerned about the reduction in Fire and Rescue services in West Bridgford and surrounding areas, due to a lack of funding which is a result of government policies. The government are failing in their primary duty to protect citizens.

We want Nottinghamshire County Council to write to the Secretary of State and Ministers demanding that funding be provided to retain the current levels of service seen at the West Bridgford and London Road Fire Stations, and throughout Fire Authority region.