Fire cover plan drawn up for York's city centre

Proposals to cut the number of engines in the centre were put on ice at a stormy meeting of North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Authority in February, following protests from firefighters and conservationists who feared York’s medieval timber buildings would be put at risk.

The original plans – which involved moving an engine and a turntable ladder from the centre to Huntington fire station – have now been revised, said York councillor and authority vice-chairman Ken King.

He said the engine would still move to Huntington and be based there at night, but during the day it would be a “floating pump”, moving around to different locations within the inner ring road boundary.

He said the proposal would ensure there was still full cover within the ring road during the busiest times of the day when traffic congestion was worst.

Coun King said: “This is a brilliant compromise and the officers should be given credit for having given full consideration to all the concerns.”

He said he would still like a proposed new city centre fire station in Kent Street to have capacity for two fire engines in case both were needed there in future.

He said a decision on the proposals, one of a number of options suggested by officers, would be taken at a full meeting of the authority on June 22.

A fire service spokesman said yesterday it was unable to comment until the report went to all committee members.

But officers have argued previously the engine’s move to Huntington would provide a faster response time to more than 30,000 people in the north of the city, including a high proportion of elderly residents.

Another 45,000 people in the south and east would also enjoy faster response times – although about 3,500 city centre residents would suffer a delayed response time.

...but opponents are less than impressed

THE new compromise proposals have cut no ice with rank-and-file firefighters or Peter Brown, of the conservation watchdog York Civic Trust.

“We are still totally committed to the retention of two firefighter crews to the Kent Street site,” said Mr Brown. He also said the new fire station should be built with three bays, sufficient to cater for two engines and the turntable ladder if there was a change of mind at a later date.

Steve Howley, of the Fire Brigades Union, which fiercely opposed the original proposals, claimed the revisions would still leave up to 90,000 people in parts of the city without adequate cover in the night, when they were most vulnerable.

“We would be totally opposed to this,” he said. “We simply want two fire engines to be based at the new Kent Street fire station.”

He said the union was disappointed to have been told by the authority it would not be informed of the latest proposals until June 15, and he instead had heard about them through the media.