Rochdale MP asks Greater Manchester Mayor to consider 'extreme circumstances' in proposed fire service cuts

Rochdale MP Tony Lloyd has asked Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to consider extreme circumstances whilst his office deliberates over making cuts to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service.

Mr Lloyd has written a letter to the Greater Manchester Mayor, asking him to consider the effects flooding and moorland fires will have on the fire service if the proposals are approved.

The Mayor’s office is considering deferring one small part of the cuts until the next spending review, in hope of receiving more funding.

More than 12,000 people have signed a petition against the proposals, which could see the city lose nine fire engines, cut 194 firefighter jobs, reduce crewing levels on each engine from five to four, close six fire stations to build only three more, and cut non-uniformed staff.

• www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/128853/greater-manchester-firefighters-lobby-mps-at-westminster

The letter reads: “During the Boxing Day Floods in 2015, Rochdale was badly affected, as were other parts of Greater Manchester. At the time, I was told every GMFRS appliance available was engaged. Equally, Fire and Rescue Services in adjoining areas Lancashire, West Yorkshire, Cheshire, Merseyside were themselves fully engaged. Therefore the possibility of mutual aid was simply not available.

“The concern on the day was that if the rain clouds had moved over the River Mersey, Greater Manchester would not have had the capacity to deal with the totality of challengers from both flooding and any other fire and rescue related emergencies.

“In the context of the fires on the Pennine Moors last year, I’m told that Greater Manchester was drawing mutual aid from as far as Kent, which does give some indication of the national stretch of fire and rescue services.

“I do trust that you will take into account the possibility of extreme circumstances like these, which are sadly less uncommon than they once were, due to climate change.”

 

 

 

Deputy Mayor of Greater Manchester for Policing, Crime, Criminal Justice and Fire, Bev Hughes, said: “The Boxing Day flooding of 2015 was an exceptionally busy period for Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) and our neighbouring Fire and Rescue Services (FRSs). However, I would like to make it very clear that at no point were all of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service’s appliances engaged, with at most two thirds being deployed.                                                                       

“We are able to deal with most incidents in Greater Manchester using the assets we have at our immediate disposal. However, there may be times when any fire and rescue service requires specialist resources and equipment, or extra assistance to mount an effective response, the recent situation in Whaley Bridge being just one example of this.

“In these exceptional circumstances all fire and rescue services have the support of the National Coordination Advisory Framework (NCAF), which helps us to provide robust and flexible response arrangements to major emergencies. We did not use this for the Boxing Day Floods of 2015 but did make use of these mutual arrangements during the wildfires of 2018. Resources are deployed in these instances on an assessment of national risk, rather than where they would need to come from.

“We will always plan to have the most frontline resources available to us given the financial limits we face, and we are confident that our planning assumptions make the most effective use of the resources we have available.

“However, in the most extreme circumstances we have tried and tested NCAF arrangements to call upon to ensure we can continue to keep the people of Greater Manchester safe.”