Cleveland fire crews slam Teesside cuts
5 Nov 2009
Cleveland, UK -- Cleveland fire crews have hit out at moves to cut fire crews at Billingham fire station in one of the highest industrial risk areas in the whole of Western Europe. The fire station is at the heart of Teesside's petrochemicals industry.?The area, they argue, has 37 top-tier COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazard) sites as well as fuel storage facilities with a capacity 100 times greater than the largest storage tank involved at Buncefield.??
The fire authority plans to cut one fire engine, reducing the station to a one-pump station, with the loss of 22 frontline firefighting posts. The cut will have a knock-on effect in surrounding areas which rely on crews at Billingham for back up in emergencies. It will also mean appliances from
According to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), the cut will mean fire fighters taking longer to get to 999 emergencies and a worse service for the people of
Steve Watson, Cleveland FBU brigade secretary said: "This area has one of the highest industrial risks in the whole of western Europe. There are 37 top-tier major accident hazard sites and some of them dwarf the storage capacity of Buncefield.
"These industries in this area pay national and local taxes and one of the services they get as a business is the fire service. It is one of the most important services for large and small businesses. There have been major incidents in this area. If you can justify cuts in one of the highest risk industrial areas in the whole of
"Cutting a fire engine and firefighters means spreading resources more thinly and that means taking longer to get to 999 incidents. It does have an effect on community safety and on how we respond to industrial incidents. It is absurd to claim that cuts in this high-risk area can be described by the authority as 'leading the way in industrial firefighting'. These are not 'efficiency gains', these cuts are very real."
