FIRE chiefs considered scrapping one of North Yorkshire’s two rescue boats, leaving England’s biggest county with only one craft, The Press can reveal.

But the proposed change, which firefighters’ leaders say could have led to delays in rescuing people who fall in the River Ouse in York, has now been dropped.

Steve Howley, of the Fire Brigades Union, said eight people had been rescued by boat over the past year from the river between Clifton Bridge and Millennium Bridge.

He said that had the number of boats been cut previously, some of the rescues could have been fatalities.

Both the service’s boats are based in York with one moored in the Ouse behind the Clifford Street fire station, which crews can get to and launch within a matter of minutes. The other is stored on a trailer to be taken out to incidents on rivers and lakes across North Yorkshire.

York Green councillor Dave Taylor said he would be concerned if there was a reduction, which would leave people vulnerable.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service said the reduction to one boat had been recommended in the light of special “swift water rescue” training which had been given to firefighters across the county in recent years, helping them to carry out many rescues safely and effectively from the bankside.

However, the service had decided not to go ahead with the change, partly because it had signed up to a national agreement to help other brigades throughout the country in an emergency by lending equipment.

If, for example, there was flooding in Cumbria, it might want to lend a rescue boat, and, if the service had only one boat, such action could have left North Yorkshire temporarily without any river rescue craft.

With the fire authority having now agreed to the relocation of just one fire engine from Clifford Street to the proposed new fire station in Kent Street, it had been decided it would be best – in the short to medium term – to keep one boat on the Ouse in summer and the second available on a trailer at the new station.