The Essex Fire service seem to be considering replacing the full-time fire crews at Rayleigh Weir with part-timers.
To quote from the Echo last Tuesday:
Essex Fire and Rescue Service deputy fire chief Adam Eckley….. has now revealed more stations with full-time crews across the county could be manned solely by retained crews…….
……. Mr Eckley said pounds could be saved by changing stations from full-time to retained.
He added: ?An average retained station costs around ?110,000 a year.
?The lowest one is ?50,000 and the most expensive one is ?300,000.
?Rayleigh Weir, a whole time, four watch system, costs just over ?1million a year. It would save us about ?900,000 if we turned that pump from whole time to retained.?
Yet back in 2009, when the old fire stations at Rayleigh and Hadleigh were closed, the whole big ‘selling point’ to the public was that having fulltime crews at Rayleigh Weir would compensate for having one station instead of two. . To quote from onlineFOCUS September 16th 2009:
Representatives from the Fire Service explained the reasoning behind closing Hadleigh and Rayleigh Fire Stations and replacing them by one station at Rayleigh Weir. The existing stations used by retained (=part-time) firemen who had to live within 5 minutes of their station. The new station would have full-time firemen ready at the station, so the average times for answering calls would be reduced.
The implications are that two years ago we had two stations staffed by part-timers, we now have one full-time station, and could now end up with just one station staffed by part-timers…….
There’s also a financial point. The Essex Fire and Rescue Authority collect about ?818,000 from Rayleigh residents this year. (for those interested in council tax calculations, that’s based on 12,321.66 band D equivalents @ ?66.42 each)
We don’t have the figures for Hadleigh handy, but surely the council tax given to the Essex Fire and Rescue Authority from Rayleigh + Hadleigh combined must be quite a bit higher than the cost of running Rayleigh Weir as a full-time fire station. So why shouldn’t the residents of Rayleigh and Hockley get what they pay for?
This new station at Rayleigh covers a large area and for it to be operated by retained crews is not acceptable by any means. The same is happening at Waltham Abbey – an important junction of the M25. Do not even think what could happen in a really serious emergency. We all rely on the 3 major services to our community – police – fire – ambulance. We appear to be returning to the Dark Ages instead of the 21st Century.
Rita, since we wrote this I’ve had some private feedback suggesting that whilst changes are being considered for many stations around the county , changes are NOT being considered for Rayleigh Weir.
Which makes the comments about Rayleigh Weir in the Echo seem a bit odd. Hopefully we can find out more.
I was at a meeting of retired firefighters only last Saturday and we were given an update on the future changes of the Essex Fire Service by Deputy Chief Officer Gordon Hunter. He named many stations around the county that were being considered for changes but Rayleigh Weir was certainly not one of them.
My knowledge of the situation is that we used to have Hadleigh with two front-line appliances manned by full-time crews and Rayleigh with one front-line appliance manned by retained.
The transfer to Rayleigh Weir from Hadleigh was a straight transfer of the whole-time crew with no adjustments to manning of appliances. There are in fact far more personnel employed at Rayleigh Weir because the station also houses the Community Command offices for the area. These personnel however, should not count in any operational costings as it would reflect a misleading overall cost.
All in all Rayleigh Weir should be on a par with what Hadleigh would have cost if it was still operational. The loss of the old Rayleigh retained station no longer features in the fire cover costs of our area.
So where, when and how does the Echo get its information? We are told that the press consider that the public have a right of information, but, if that is the wrong information, who do we believe? Is it any wonder “Joe Public” are confused!