Better news about Yate Fire Station

Some positive news on Yate Fire Station. At the end of last year, Avon Fire Authority was consulting on cutting Yate Fire Station from a full time service 24 hours a day to having a full time crew 8am to 5pm and just one crew on call at night. We were very concerned that this could put people in the Yate area at risk - you can see Claire Young's response to the consultation here.

Our Yate colleague Cllr Mike Drew has been working hard with the Deputy Chief Fire Officer to develop an alternative. Instead of taking us down to one on call crew, the Fire Authority has now agreed there will be two part time crews on call. While not the full time crew we wanted, it's a step in the right direction.

Having two crews, even coming from home, makes a big difference. Because there will be two crews there at about the same time, they are allowed to do things like doing rescues. If there was only one local crew they could assess the situation but then they would have to wait for a second crew e.g. from Kingswood before they could actually enter a burning building.

The agreed two-crew manning is supported by the Fire Brigades Union, so we think it's a reasonable answer to the problem. A big thank you goes to Mike and everyone who has campaigned for a better outcome.

Yate fire station to lose full-time status?

Avon Fire and Rescue Service needs to save £5 million a year thanks to cuts in the funding it gets from Government. They are now asking you to have your say on their proposals on how to do this.

Their ideas include Yate station losing its full-time status - instead of it being staffed by crews 24 hours a day, it will only be staffed in the day time with "on-call" firefighters (Retained Duty System) at night. Retained Duty System crewing adds 3.5 minutes to target response time from the moment of the call to the fire engine leaving the station overnight, including the evening rush hour.

This takes Yate Fire Station back to more or less where it was in 2009. The 2009 change to a 24 hour duty system was because of higher risk in a growing, and now still growing area. According to the consultation, the number of fires in the area has reduced so the full-time crewing is no longer justified.

However we have been told that the reduction in fires is that is because of the large amount of preventative and community work that has been carried out. But this work is done by full-timers, who will now be available only in the daytime, unless extra overtime costs are incurred.

You can find out more and have your say on the Avon Fire and Rescue Service website until the end of December.