Union protests to reverse and stop cuts to Suffolk fire service

Firefighters were due to hold a protest on Thursday calling for the reversal of cuts made to the Suffolk Fire and Rescue service.

Organised by the Suffolk branch of the Fire Brigades Union, the #RescueSuffolkFire campaign was lobbying at Endeavour House, in Ipswich – the Suffolk County Council HQ.

Speaking before the protest, Phil Johnston, chair of the Suffolk Fire Brigades Union (FBU), said: “The main reason we have done this protest is because we thought we had to do something as the FBU – we’re all suffering cuts, we appreciate what’s going on in the government with austerity.

“Seeing what’s going on around East Anglia they’re all suffering similar things but in Suffolk we’re suffering them all – we haven’t just got a lack of fire engines.”

Mr Johnston said Suffolk was seeing cuts in all aspects of the service – reduced crews, resources, not using staff appropriately and in training.

One of the main issues he said he wished to raise was the fact that fire engines were now being sent out with three crew members – often on-call fire fighters who were not trained in breathing apparatus so could not enter a building to rescue people if they were trapped.

The FBU argues that, since 2010, the UK fire and rescue service has been reduced by 40 per cent.

In a briefing to MPs, the FBU said: “As smaller budgets are handed down from central government to local fire authorities, police and crime commissioners and county councils, it is left to local governance models, advised by senior fire service managers, to distribute the funds and decide how to deliver the statutory duties of the fire service locally.

“This has seen the quality of emergency fire and rescue response received by our communities become a postcode lottery. Suffolk county are losing that postcode lottery.

"Fire service managers have delivered and imposed cuts in such a way that Suffolk firefighters and control staff struggle to provide the same fire cover that we see in neighbouring Cambridgeshire, Essex and Norfolk."

Mark Hardingham, chief fire officer, said that although reduced crews of three firefighters were sent out to an incident they were always followed by other crews from different fire stations.

“The changes we have made in Suffolk are broadly similar to the changes being made across the country which have been being made in the last 10 years. Wherever possible, we try to minimise changes,” he said.