July’s extreme heat has made it even more important that planned cuts to North Yorkshire fire service do not go ahead, a York MP has told the Home Secretary.
Rachael Maskell said she did not want to see “people put at risk because of a reduction in fire and rescue services” during a meeting with Priti Patel.
The changes proposed by North Yorkshire police, fire and crime commissioner (PFCC) Zoe Metcalfe, who was elected as the Conservative Party candidate in November last year, would see York’s Huntington fire station become an on-call service, as well as a reduction in night time cover cut at Harrogate and Scarborough fire stations.
Earlier this month, a City of York Council motion opposing fire service cuts was passed unanimously – including by the council’s two Conservative members.
And at last week’s meeting of the North Yorkshire police, fire and crime panel, York Liberal Democrats called for the commissioner to reconsider the ‘risk and resource model’ plans for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service (NYFRS).
Cllr Darryl Smalley said: “Residents are rightly outraged about these dangerous proposals, which are nothing more than a cut in services for over 30,000 people in the city and many more beyond York.”
He and City of York Council leader Cllr Keith Aspden urged all panel members to formally note the concerns with the proposals in a statement to the PFCC’s consultation, which was agreed.
Home Secretary ‘sympathetic’
York Central MP Ms Maskell held a meeting last week with Ms Patel about the wider issue of North Yorkshire’s chronically under-funded fire service, which was also attended by the service’s chief fire officer Jonathan Dyson, Fire Brigades Union boss Steve Howley and Ms Metcalfe.
The Labour MP said more cuts were inevitable unless the government changes the way it funds NYFRS. North Yorkshire loses out on funding because it costs more to provide services across a large and rural area.
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She said the Home Secretary was “very sympathetic to the arguments made”.
On the risk and resource model, she said: “It has serious implications for the city and therefore I do call them cuts and I didn’t hold back in highlighting that to the Home Secretary in front of the PFCC.
“Because of the situation with extreme heat, it’s so important that the programme doesn’t proceed.”
Cllr Aspden added: “The chronic long term underfunding of the service will affect its resilience, unless there is the political will nationally to change the funding formula. Things are only going to get worse and the decisions facing the fire service’s future even more difficult, unless the Conservative government actually takes action which recognises this.”
Ms Metcalfe has rejected the suggestion that the risk and resource model is a way of saving money.
She said: “If it was about cuts we would have to do it straight away. We have a balanced budget, albeit very tight, at the moment. Even if we had a pot of reserves as big as some other well-funded services I would still be doing this.
“The reason is we need to understand where our risk is across the county and York and we need to make sure we have the right resource in the right place.”