Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue is recommending going ahead with new proposals which it says will mean 20 new recruits being taken on in the county.
In South Holland it would mean Spalding’s full time crews being stopped from working nights.
But Lincolnshire County Council’s Community Safety Scrutiny Committee was last week told it’s now not legal to ask them to work nights while they’re working the day and that less people volunteering was leading to longer response times.
Coun Alex McGonigle, the executive member overseeing the fire service, said the proposal was developed following five years of analysing call data, though when it was first announced to firefighters it included not having whole time crews on weekends at Spalding Fire Station.
The recommended proposal will see the full time crews man the station during the day time, seven days a week.
On Call crews, such as those based at Holbeach, Crowland, Donington and Long Sutton, as well as at Spalding, will be solely responsible for night time cover.
Coun McGonigle called the proposal ‘more resilient, sustainable and better aligned to the risks facing Lincolnshire’.
“The relationship has become increasingly fragile and reliant on good will,” he said of full time crews manning night shifts. “This proposal allows us to move away from the non-compliant legacy systems and establish working operations that provide greater legal, operational and workforce assurances.
“I recognise that residents want reassurance on night time cover and Lincolnshire’s on call firefighters remain central to our model and will provide emergency cover across our 38 fire stations.
“The evidence shows that on call is strongest on evening, nights and weekends and this proposal makes better use of that strength while placing more whole time resources when incident demand is highest.
“We will not, however, take night time resilience for granted.
“The service will continue to monitor appliance availability closely and will take targeted recruitment in those areas where on call is most critical.
“The intention is to maintain effective night time cover while strengthening the overall county response model.”
Ryan Stacey, assistant chief fire officer at Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, said: “We have seen speed of attendance at night already begin to erode over the last two years.
“The length of time it takes us to respond has increased and that is down in large part to the number of people opting out of the system.
“As soon as a whole time crew member opts out of a night time shift, we call the on call crews to man them.
“They haven’t increased beyond standard and we don’t expect them to increase much more.
“Ultimately the on call staff are already crewing these fire engines in the evenings, supplemented by the whole time.”
There were 609 responses to the consultation launched on the proposals including 472 members of the public and 47 staff.
There were 61 respondents from South Holland and Spalding was listed as an example of a rural place where people felt the changes would have a negative effect on.
The report on the consultation findings state: “South Holland respondents were less likely to identify positive impacts and more likely to identify negative impacts than general respondents.”
The number of incidents the 48 fire engines at 38 stations rose last year to 2,169 fire chief Mark Baxter something he attributed partly to more wild fires.
