Bidford and Alcester hold meetings over fire service proposals
Week ending 15th April 2010
A busy weekend for village’s firefighters IT WAS a busy weekend for Bidford’s firefighters after they attended five incidents.
On Thursday, crews were called to Friday Furlong at 5.30pm to cut down trees that had been damaged by fire.
Less than 45 minutes later, they were alerted to a building fire at The Bank, near Saxonfields, and were on the scene within five minutes.
Crews donned breathing apparatus to take quick action and prevent the first floor blaze spreading to the rest of the disused timber property.
The next day, firefighters tackled a rubbish fire in a barn off Stepping Stones in Bidford and on Sunday they dealt with another rubbish fire, this time at Friday Furlong.
That evening, crews used a hosereel jet to fight a fire which destroyed a garden shed and its contents at Hillside in Wixford.
10:44am Tuesday 6th October 2009
MEETINGS were held this week in both Bidford and Alcester to discuss the proposals for the county's Fire and Rescue Service.
Warwickshire Fire and Rescue is proposing a plan in which Bidford's fire station is closed and Alcester's increases in size to gain a further fire appliance and several full time firefighters, in addition to their current retained staff.
The service organised a public meeting at Alcester High School, which suffered from poor attendance, while another meeting, organised by Bidford Parish Council, took place simultaneously at a packed Crawford Memorial Hall.
Response times for Bidford currently run at approximately five minutes for a fire call out, and a timer was set at the Bidford meeting to show attendees the new 20 minute response time they will be getting under the new proposals.
Bidford resident Bill Flemming spoke at length at the meeting, both about the altered response times and proposals to situate Small Fires Units around the county.
He said: "Small fires soon become big fires, and a five minute small fire can be a 20 minute big fire. Who decides what to send? You'd be standing in the street waiting for that, watching your house burn down."
Fire officer Mike Franklin went on to say: "Statistics show our station ground in Bidford is busier here. There are more fires in our area, and more RTCs. Based on statistics you'd place a fire station here."
In Alcester meanwhile, questions were put to the deputy chief fire officer, Glen Ranger, regarding the proposals to increase the size and responsibility of Alcester's fire station.
He said: "We do foresee Bidford and Studley being included within the fire cover turn out area of Alcester fire station. That is something we calculated using the Fire Service Emergency Cover Model, and we also conducted operational timed runs, in and around the neighbouring towns.
"We are very comfortable that we will be able provide a better service by using that model, and where we can't provide a better service we will maintain the current service, and we will meet the standards of cover set by the county council."
Councillor Nina Knapman added: "While I'm delighted that the Alcester service will be improved, you can't look at things in isolation, you have to look at how it's going to affect the whole area, and I'm not absolutely happy that a plan that's been taken from Manchester is going to work in such a rural area, when we know what the weather's like, we know what the flooding’s like, and we know what it's like when there's a mass of traffic on the road."
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Bidford’s new recruits, Mike Rogers and Ben Thould with crew manager Mike Franklin.
New recruits for Bidford Fire Station despite closure threat
10:48am Tuesday 20th October 2009
IN the face of prospective closure and despite the citing of recruitment difficulties as a factor in the proposed station closures, Bidford fire station is still going strong, with two new recruits on its books.
Ben Thould and Mike Rogers have been with the station for about six months and two months respectively and having just completed their basic training as firefighters, their careers are now in jeopardy.
Crew manager Mike Franklin, said: “We don’t really have difficulty recruiting, this is the sad thing. The fire brigade are saying there’s a problem recruiting and retaining retained staff, but the problem was they didn’t let us. There was almost an unofficial recruitment freeze.
“Obviously they’ve got full time jobs outside this, but as far as the fire service goes, if these proposals go ahead they’re being made redundant. They’ve just gone through the whole of basic training for nothing.”
Retained firefighters must live or work within a certain distance from their station in order to respond to emergency call outs within a strict time frame, so if the Bidford station does close, the firefighters stationed there won’t be able to transfer to other stations in the area, even if they want to.
Mike added: “There’s a mixture of being fed up and disappointed. They give a lot to their community and they can’t transfer anywhere. They will be cast aside. A representative from the service essentially said to us, ‘thanks for all that, but you’re in the wrong place’.
“Obviously we’ll fight it. It’s something we’d wish to avoid, but for us and Studley it seems to be every few years they come up with the same old rubbish, and we battle it and stay open. As recently as March we were called an essential local service.”
The proposals are still undergoing consultation, which runs until Tuesday, December 8 and residents can put forward their opinion by visiting
Other Links
Bidford PC
Stratford Herald
Evesham Journal
