Posted: Fri 24th Oct 2014

North Wales Fire Service Could Face Staff & Service Reduction

Wrexham.com for people living in or visiting the Wrexham area
This article is old - Published: Friday, Oct 24th, 2014

Over 200 firefighters jobs in North Wales could be lost if the service does not receive vital funding over the next five years.

Cuts for the North Wales Fire and Rescue Service could result in staff redundancies and a reduction in services if the necessary funding is not found.

This year, 2014-15, the county council contributions to North Wales Fire and Rescue Authority were £320,000 lower than they were in 2010-11. The running costs of North Wales Fire and Rescue Service are met by the six county councils in the area – Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham – which are also having to make difficult decisions about their own services.

However if funding of £3.3million is not found services across North Wales could be dramatically reduced, along with the redundancy of 228 members of staff.

This could result in the closing of at least seven retained fire stations, possibly more, and removing the fire engines and firefighter posts from those stations. Retained fire engines from seven wholetime fire stations would also be removed, leaving just one fire engine at each location.

Within Wrexham one of the two wholetime fire engines that are based in the town could also be removed. Currently Wrexham is the only fire station in North Wales that has two wholetime fire engines.

Now North Wales Fire and Rescue Service have released a public consultation that presents three options to participants, however the consultation may present different alternatives.

The three options include: To continue to freeze the annual budget until 2019/20 and make £3.3million of cuts (10%) to fire and rescue services in North Wales, to follow the Welsh Government’s advice and cut the annual budget by at least the same percentage as will be cut from the central funding; and to increase the Authority’s annual budget by an average of 2% each year
until 2019/20 and avoid making the £3.3million of cuts (10%) to fire and rescue services in North Wales.

Councillor Meirick Lloyd Davies, Chair of the Fire and Rescue Authority, said: “The questions we are asking as part of this consultation are to do with how we can ensure we provide the best service possible with the money we have available to us.

“The more people get involved, the better our prospects of achieving the right balance of services we provide. The more opinions we receive, the more we can be confident that the detailed action plans we develop will deliver exactly what the people of North Wales want.”

The public can find out more about getting involved by logging on to the website www.nwales-fireservice.org.uk – responses must be forwarded by the deadline on 9th January 2015.



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