Surrey Firefighters Use Social Media To Issue ‘Safety Alert’ Over Crewing

Published on: 12 Jul, 2019
Updated on: 18 Jul, 2019

By Rebecca Curley

local democracy reporter

A social media post claiming to highlight the “dire straits” firefighters are suffering in trying to crew stations and engines has been shared more than 300 times.

The Facebook page, called Staines Fire Station, posted a screenshot claiming to be Surrey Fire and Rescue Service’s rota for this weekend – Saturday and Sunday, July 13 and 14 – as an example of the challenges firefighters are facing

The post, published on Tuesday (July 9) was titled Safety Alert Please Share, and warned that the only fire engines with enough firefighters to crew them would be at Godstone and Leatherhead on Saturday and Sunday, and Godstone, Leatherhead and Sunbury on Sunday.

It also said the number of firefighters on duty should meet a minimum requirement of eight for Woking, Guildford and Camberley and four for all the others. But all were showing fewer staff on duty.

Surrey County Council, the authority for SFRS, said the information was posted on an “unofficial site” and they have plans in place to deal with emergencies “effectively”.

But a union rep said the information was a “daily occurrence” for firefighters and would not be a surprise to many.

The page has more than 4,000 followers and the post has been shared 300 times, with more than 70 comments.

It said: “Bearing in mind 12 new recruits hit stations the first week of May, this shows the dire straights [sic] the service is in. We have another 24 recruits going through training school as I type, but by the time they hit stations, nearly that amount will have retired or left, having zero impact.

“From the picture below, the Assistant Group Commander on duty will have the headache of deciding which multiple stations to close for both shifts, sending the remaining firefighters to other locations around the county to prop them up.

“We are all in this together and the firefighters on stations to [sic] not envy the officers having to make those decisions, as it’s no fault of there [sic] own.

“In addition to that, our control members have an absolute nightmare managing resources and moving Fire Engines around the county, ensuring they maintain the best possible cover for the whole of the county, most of the time whilst they are under-crewed too!!”

The council recently held a consultation over its transformation plan for the struggling fire service in which government inspectors reported “serious concerns” over at the end of last year.

A petition calling on the council to scrap plans to leave seven fire appliances un-crewed at night now has more than 12,000 signatures.

A council spokesman said: “This information is from an unofficial social media site and does not explain the whole picture for Surrey.

“We have tried-and-tested plans in place to make sure we can always deal with emergencies effectively and we continually monitor all our vehicles around the county, using new technology, so people and equipment are in the right place at the right time.

“This is undertaken dynamically, by highly trained and experienced staff.

“Crewing levels naturally vary on a shift by shift basis and we move staff around across the county as required. We also have good working relationships with neighbouring fire services who assist us during peaks in demand and we reciprocate for them when needed.

“We’ve recently taken on 75 more firefighters, are continuing to recruit and have also published proposals aimed at reducing the number of fires and other emergencies in the county.”

Lee Belsten, secretary of Surrey Fire Brigades Union, said it was a daily occurrence for fire stations and fire engines to be under-staffed in Surrey and the figures will not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the “catastrophic financial failings” of the fire service.

He said: “With so little regard for firefighters or control room and support staff, it was inevitable that the service would eventually struggle to provide the basic and minimum level of operational fire cover.

“These issues have been apparent for over eight years, but the service only began its wholly inadequate recruitment drive towards the end of 2018.

“The Service and Council have become too reliant on overtime. It’s the goodwill of firefighters, working over and above their contracted hours to support their colleagues and communities, that has kept fire engines available and fire stations open.”

Councillors were told the new £3.7m state-of-the-art fire station for Fordbridge Road, Ashford, will open at the end of August.