A COMPROMISE keeps full-time 24-7 fire and rescue cover in the county.

Hereford and Worcester Fire & Rescue Authority (HWFRA) has backed a new shift pattern that sees two full-time crews stay on standby at  Hereford fire station, saving full-time fire-fighter jobs.

Called “day crew plus”, the shift pattern is a response to proposed - and strongly opposed - service cuts that would have cost Hereford station one of its two full-time appliances.

At its simplest, the shift pattern has day cover provided by two full-time crews with the second crew then “living in” at the station on call overnight.

County councillor and fire authority representative Jim Kenyon said the compromise on cover was the best outcome that could have emerged from negotiations over the extent of proposed cuts.

 “We’re in a much better place than we were six months ago keeping two full-time crews, saving fire-fighter jobs and ensuring emergency response experience is on hand,” he said.

HWFRA had been presented with a savings plan called Community Risk Management (CRM) drawn up to cover a projected budget gap of more than £2 million by 2016-17.

Under the first draft of CRM  - which outlined cuts in funding for frontline services - Hereford would have lost an appliance with full-time cover down to a single engine backed up by a retained crew.  

HWFRA was told that, to secure savings, full-time crews could come down to as few as four unless some £800,000 was released from reserves to support the current five.

Day crew plus does step up the search for a new fire station in Hereford with the current station in St Owen Street accepted as not up to standard.

Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue has said it has been looking at likely locations since the pulling out of a move to the site of the city’s old working boys home – a move that met with resistance from heritage campaigners.

The service says it cannot confirm locations it is looking at, but the Hereford Times understands that a purpose-built station of Hereford’s proposed inner link road is in the running.