Cheshire Fire Authority held a consultation meeting on Tuesday 2 February at Birchwood Fire Station with the purpose of discussing planed changes to Fire Services from the Station. Paul Campbell, Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Warrington North and Judith Wise the Conservative Candidate for Birchwood in the Borough Council Elections in May attended along with other local politicians and residents to hear the case being put.
The consultation document is available on the Cheshire Fire Authority website. Page 22 indicates the analysis for Birchwood which states:
"The Service continues to review the crewing and response arrangements at Birchwood Community Fire Station in Warrington – currently one of eight stations which are staffed 24/7.
Our statistics show that Birchwood has the lowest number of incidents of all these wholetime stations. In fact, two of the Service’s stations which only have staff on station during the day – because of lower risk levels - have considerably higher levels of activity than Birchwood.
The Authority is therefore intending to change the crewing system so that it is in line with the activity levels and risks in the area.
Possible options are:
- Making it a day crewed station - like those at Northwich, Winsford, Stockton Heath, Congleton and Knutsford
- Having staff on station in the day and using retained duty staff who are on call in the evening.
- Having staff on station in the day and then moving in an appliance and crew from another wholetime station at night"
Paul Campbell and Judith Wise both oppose any reduction in hours and are highlighting the importance of having overnight cover in an area with such a large and important business presence in addition to rural and built up residential locations. Birchwood Fire Station's close proximity to Junction 11 of the M62 and Junction 21 of the M6 enables a larger area of cover within any given time frame as well as supporting potential emergencies on the motorway network itself.
As part of the consultation, if you would like to oppose this change please join Paul and Judith in an on-line petition.
