19 Apr 2013

Londoners invited to attend public meetings on future of Brigade

The London Fire Brigade is holding 24 open meetings across the city as part of the public consultation on its Draft Fifth London Safety Plan, which outlines how the Brigade will continue to keep Londoners safe over the next three years.

The first took place on Monday, March 25 in Barking and Dagenham and further meetings will continue over the next few months until Monday, 17 June.

The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA), the political body which runs the London Fire Brigade, is consulting on its Draft Fifth London Safety Plan, which outlines how the Authority will deliver the capital’s fire and rescue service over the next three years.

Included in the plan are details of how the Authority proposes to make savings worth £28.8m, including closing 12 fire stations, removing 18 fire engines, relocating four fire engines and reducing the number of firefighter posts by 520. This would be done while maintaining existing response time targets of getting the first fire engine to an incident, on average across London, in six minutes and the second, if needed in eight minutes. These are amongst the fastest target response times of any emergency service in the country and almost twice as fast as some other brigades. However, some boroughs will see reduced actual attendance times.

London Fire Commissioner, Ron Dobson, said:

'These public meetings will cover every borough of London. This a unique chance to hear about my proposals for the future of the London Fire Brigade and how the changes I’m proposing may affect the fire service in each borough of London.

'People will also have the opportunity to ask us questions and I’d urge everyone to come along and have their say.'

Details of all the meetings can be found on the Brigade’s website.

After attending the meetings to learn more about the proposals the Brigade hopes people will then take part in the consultation which is also available online.

Related links

•Draft Fifth London Fire Safety Plan

•LSP5 supporting documents

•Public meetings