FIRE chiefs insist 31,000 people in towns and villages north of York will get a better service if a fire engine is relocated from the city centre to Huntington fire station.

As suggested earlier this week in The Press, senior fire officers are standing by their original plans to move the engine, but say it could be used mainly as a “roaming appliance” within the inner ring road during the day.

Officers have been reconsidering original proposals to relocate the engine since heavy criticism last winter by rank-and-file firefighters and conservation watchdogs, who were particularly worried about increased fire risks to the city’s timber-framed medieval buildings and their occupants.

But in a report to a meeting next week of North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Authority, chief fire officer Nigel Hutchinson said: “The improvement in response time for the 31,000 people living to the north of the city is still the single most important factor.”

He said that if two pumps were kept at the proposed new city centre fire station in Kent Street, those people – in communities such as Huntington, Haxby, Wigginton, Strensall, New Earswick and parts of Rawcliffe – would receive a worse service than if one of the engines was transferred to Huntington.

However, he conceded risks in the city centre were higher during the day, when the number of visitors was greater and response times were marginally slower. He said appliances needed to be closer to the centre during the day and in residential areas at night and he was therefore recommending that an engine should be moved to Huntington, but with it working mainly within the ring road between 8am and 6pm.

“This allows the appliance to follow the risk as the working and tourist population within the ring road increases during the day and better meets the domestic sleeping risk in the suburbs during the evening and night time period.”

The idea of a floating or roaming appliance has been described as a “brilliant compromise” by York councillor and fire authority vice chairman Ken King, but the overall proposals are still opposed by firefighter union and civic trust leaders.