Cambridgeshire fire chiefs say they have been obliged to ask for a bigger rise than usual in Council Tax following the ending of a 14 year ‘partnership’ with Suffolk Fire Service that has saved them £12m since it began.
Wayne Swales, an assistant director here at Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, told CambsNews: “We run a very very lean fire and rescue service in Cambridgeshire – one of the leanest in the country as well as still providing one of the best performing fire services
“But one of our biggest areas of reduction of our funding has come from our collaboration with Suffolk fire rescue service for our fire control centre. Suffolk can move into their own fire control away from us this year and that has provided a hole in our financial ability.
“Hence why we’ve come out to our communities around our Council Tax funding. We do have a hole that we need to fill and do what we have always done and look to provide an efficient lean service.”
Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service is planning to increase its share of Council Tax by £4.95 for the next financial year.
For a Band D household, this increase will make the annual contribution to the fire service of £87.21, a monthly cost of roughly £7.27, or around £1.68 a week.
Chief Fire Officer Matthew Warren said: “Taking the decision to increase Council Tax is always a difficult one”.
He said the ‘significant challenge’ following the ending of the partnership with Suffolk had included taking 999 calls and mobilising fire engines and other resources across both counties.
“The collaboration was established to save each fire service money, which it has with more than £12 million saved in the time it has been operating,” he said.
“We will now have to find an additional £1million per year, just to break even.
“Ending our partnership is extremely disappointing for us.”
Mr Warren said extra money was also needed to “meet inflationary costs and go towards improving our response times to incidents and ensuring our operational crews have the resources and equipment to do their job now and in the future”.
Mr Swales spoke to CambsNews on Tuesday at Huntingdon Fire Station where he oversaw the roll out of what has been described as a “new concept” fire appliance.
“It’s a piece of work that we’ve been working on for over 12 months now which combines a few areas or quite significant amount of areas that we’re focusing on as a service which is sustainability and also protection and enhancing the work environment for our firefighters,” he said.
“Compared to our other current fleet of fire appliances what we’ve done is moved our BAS or briefing operator sets from the cab into a specific locker in the back of the vehicle
“That’s one part of that. The aim is to try and keep what we class as a clean cab principle area so that when our firefighters are moving around other parts of their daily business whether it be responding to calls or whether it be out in the communities doing community safety work, that environment is as contaminant free as it can possibly be
“That all works in conjunction with how they operate with a vehicle and how post incident they keep the clean and how they use the vehicle as part of that change, and which is to stow their dirty kit and to keep their clean kit in certain areas and how they operate both before and after incidents.”
Trialling a ‘clean cab concept’, which sees PPE, including breathing apparatus, removed from the cab, will create a cleaner space for crews following an incident.
The service says this is the first step in the trial to build on making operational areas cleaner, reducing the risks from contaminants.
The new appliance has also modified its fuel system.
“It’s a standard Scania but the difference is we will run it on hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO) fuel rather than standard petrol or diesel, this reduces carbon emissions by between 77 and 93 per cent that diesel fuel gives.
“The beauty with it is it can be mixed with diesel so we will fill up with HVO fuel from a specific site which is which is part of our trial with Huntingdonshire District Council.
“If we’re out and about in the community and are low on fuel we can fill up with normal diesel at a normal petrol station so the two can be mixed.
“It’s a very flexible fuel to use which does give you a significant reduction in your emissions as well.”
The kit stowed on the new fire engines is also battery operated, with no need for a generator.
Cambs fire says its new engine at Huntingdon is also a key part of the service’s commitment to reducing the risk of spreading contaminants from operational incidents.
Mr Swales added: “I think the beauty with what we’ve done here is throughout the station and the crews have been involved in it -not denying it’s been a massive change for people because historically breathing and apparatus sets have always been in the back of the cab – so to change here has been quite a jump.
“What we’ve done is we spend some time integrating that for them to practice and to train and exercise with it before it went live.”
Assistant director of Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue, Wayne Swales spoke to CambsNews on Monday at Huntingdon Fire Station where he oversaw the roll out of what has been described as a “new concept” fire appliance. Cambs Fire also explained why they are asking for a Council Tax increase.
