Oakham Fire Fighting Services to be cut

It has been announced in the press that it is proposed that fire fighting services in Oakham should be cut which will put lives and properties at risk. The current two appliances in the town under the plane will be reduced to a single machine as cuts bite and 100 firefighters lose their jobs. This comes as Leicestershire fire services have to make cuts of £5.5 million due to cuts in Government funding.

Mr Webb, chief fire officer, said "Members of the public would probably notice the difference if they called the fire service. Probably not with the first fire engine arriving but certainly the second, in some areas, would be slower than it currently is.". With the nearest fire station to Oakham being in Melton Mowbray the people in Rutland will certainly notice a slower response time as fire engines heavy with water have to travel  from further afield to assist in fighting fires.  

To give you an idea of the scale of the cuts to the fire service in Leicestershire and Rutland, the force current employs around 400 fighters which would be cut to 300 with the loss of 100 jobs. That is one quarter of the fire fighters in the region losing their jobs. It is no wonder we are being warned that the service, which is all ready lean, will be slower to respond to emergency calls in future. Unions warn that the fighters lives will be put at risk as well, as members of the public, when crews of five on each appliance are reduced to four. Talking about the manning of the fire engined Graham Vaux, from the fire fighters union said "If we have less than five on each fire engine there wouldn't be enough firefighters to carry out a rescue or put up a ladder, which means we could put ourselves at risk or the public,"

These are no small cuts they are massive. The fire services are something the Conservative government be protecting from cuts just as it protects the NHS. It is an essential service that saves lives. One of the many roles of any Government is to protect there citizens not putting them at risk. This is Government fail and the sooner we have a Government that cares about the people and maintenances services the better. The shower we have in cares about nothing but looking after their own.

I urge the people of Rutland not to accept these cuts and write to Sir Alan Duncan and if he fails to protect the fire service in Rutland then vote him and his local Government Conservatives friends out at the next election. If they can't protect the people of Rutland they don't deserve to be in power.