Nancy Platts is pressing the East Sussex Fire Authority to reveal what impact fire service cuts will have on response times in East Sussex.
Nancy, the Labour parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven, has written to the Fire Authority to ask if response times to road traffic accidents and flooding incidents will be adversely affected by cutting firefighters and an engine.
She intends to raise the matter at a Fire Authority meeting on September 11, as she is concerned that cuts to the service will leave facilities overstretched.
In her letter Nancy highlights that in July 2014 the Argus reported that a crew from Newhaven had to cover for Roedean due to extreme weather suggesting that all five appliances from the city were already attending other incidents
Similarly a month earlier the Argus reported that 100 people were killed or seriously injured on Sussex’s roads– the worst month in four years.
Brighton and Hove currently has five fire engines in the city but there are proposals to cut one from the fleet. Firefighters are facing redundancy, a 96 hour shift structure will be introduced and, according to the fire service’s own modelling, there is an increased risk of loss of life.
Nancy said: “I want Fire Authority members to look again at the decision they took on June 5 to cut frontline services from Brighton and Hove. Putting more money into fire prevention is all very well, but it won’t help deal with the increase in road traffic accidents or flooding incidents. People want help to arrive quickly in an emergency but these cuts will see our fire crews stretched to breaking point.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.