Grimsby's Cromwell Road Fire Station under threat of closure to cut costs

CROMWELL Road Fire Station could close under plans to cut costs at Humberside Fire And Rescue Service.

And bosses admit the risk to the public would increase under the cuts – but only by just over 1 per cent – and insist no jobs would be lost.

The service anticipates it needs to save £5.5 million, or about 20 per cent of its budget, by April 2016, due to cuts in Government funding, as reported.

The first of a dozen public consultation events has been held at Grimsby's St James' Hotel, showing a range of ideas of how the service could save the cash as part of its Operational Efficiency Programme.

Options include the removal of a fire engine from Immingham West station and a merger of Grimsby's Peaks Lane and Cromwell Road stations, which could see the latter close.

Savings worth £5 million have already been implemented across Humberside since 2011/12.

Assistant chief fire officer Chris Blacksell said: "Doing nothing is not an option, the budget is reducing and we have to do something.

"We need people to help the fire authority decide what to do and we are very keen to encourage people to see what we are doing and to have their say.

"We have been very open in identifying the risks and there will be a slight increase, but even if we implemented every single option there would still be a risk increase of only one per cent.

"So far, we have managed to reduce our budget without any compulsory redundancies and we are hoping we will not have to make any through these changes.

"We have had a huge reduction in calls in the past few years because of increased education and improved safety."

Jason Kirby, North East Lincolnshire's community protection unit manager, said: "We have looked at the risk projection across the service and we have looked at statistics from in each area.

"Every option has a minimal effect if any, we have intervention standards and all of those options allow us to maintain those."

The options were created through engagement sessions throughout the Humberside service region in July.

Here are the options in our area:

Merge Peaks Lane and Cromwell Road stations and remove one fire engine (saving £1.1 million).

Remove one fire engine from Cromwell Road Fire Station (saving £0.8 million).

Remove one fire engine from Cromwell Road Fire Station; don't crew the Cleethorpes and Waltham fire engines and relocate full-time engines from Grimsby into those areas during an evening (saving £1.2 million).

Remove one fire engine from Cromwell Road Fire Station, replace the fire engines at Cleethorpes and Waltham with SFUs (small fire units) and use them for small fires in the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Waltham areas (saving £1 million).

Merge Peaks Lane and Cromwell Road stations and remove one fire engine, don't crew Cleethorpes and Waltham fire engines and relocate full time engines from Grimsby into those areas during an evening (saving £1.5 million).

Merge Peaks Lane and Cromwell Road stations and replace the fire engines at Cleethorpes and Waltham with SFUs and use them for small fires in the Grimsby, Cleethorpes and Waltham areas (saving £1.3 million).

Merge the stations at Immingham East and remove one fire engine (saving £1.1 million).

Remove the second fire engine from Immingham West Fire Station (saving £0.8 million).

There are further public consultation sessions on Monday, December 2 at Immingham Civic Centre from 5pm to 8pm, Wednesday, December 4 at Waltham British Legion from 10.30am to 1.30pm, Friday, December 6, at Immingham Civic Centre from 10.30am to 1.30pm, and Monday, December 9 from 10.30am to 1.30pm at Grimsby's St James Hotel.

The consultation closes on Friday, January 10, with feedback and a decision to be announced on Thursday, January 31.