Funding agreed for Warwickshire’s new fire service model

THE hotly-debated changes to the fire service that are under way have now been backed by a longer-term commitment to funding them.

Alarm was raised by the early ideas put forward for Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service to adopt what was termed a resourcing to risk model, with Stratford district set to be disadvantaged by the plans.

But vigorous criticism of how the data was being used – ignoring, for example, that while some areas of the county were struggling with the availability of on-call firefighters, places like Bidford were not – prompted a fresh look at how to serve the county, during the day and at night.

This updated strategy – known as Model A – was backed by the county council cabinet last year and changes are now being made, which will guarantee the availability of 14 appliances across Warwickshire during the day and 13 at night, with an extra four appliances available within two hours if needed.

The aim was to improve the average first response times across the county and increase the service’s capacity to carry out prevention and protection work.

In Stratford district, the new approach will mean that during the day (7am to 7pm), Stratford, Henley, Alcester and Wellesbourne will each have one appliance.

During the night (7pm to 7am), appliances will be available from Stratford, Henley, Bidford and Wellesbourne.

The fire stations at Shipston, Gaydon and Fenny Compton will be home to the extra, resilience appliances.

The changes are set to be fully implemented by early 2026 but there was lingering concern that funding was uncertain beyond the initial three-year plan.

That was addressed at the latest county council meeting on Thursday (13th February) when the additional funding was made a permanent part of county council spending plans.

Rolling out more staffed positions for the new approach required an increase in spending of more than £500,000 per year.

The county council initially committed the extra money for three years – the length of the community risk management plan (CRMP).

But a further £602,000 – increased funding that takes account of likely inflation and staffing costs – has been budgeted for in 2028-29 with another £614,000 coming forward for 2029-30, taking things to the end of the council’s five-year spending plan.

That plan is refreshed each year but any removal of this money would now require a fresh budgeting decision as it has been allocated as a permanent spending feature moving forward as opposed to a time-limited one.

Cllr Andy Crump (Con, Southam, Stockton & Napton), the political lead on the fire service and community safety, admitted to fellow cabinet members that current performance data was “not particularly flattering” but he insisted: “I think it validates what we have been doing with resourcing to risk. The response times will improve significantly.

“We have now found another £602,000 for year four and another £614,000 for year five, so we are funding resourcing to risk for the five-year medium-term financial strategy.

“That was one of the queries that our residents from Bidford who came to overview and scrutiny, cabinet meetings and others asked, how this would be funded going forward, so that is good news.”

And in terms of the prevention and protection work, Cllr Crump added: “We will have more people trained to help with fire protection and we have put additional money into that in light of the Grenfell building regulation changes.

“Although we are not quite on target with our fire protection inspections, our enforcement has increased by 500 per cent [up from three to 19].

“This is something that the inspector raised, that we were not doing enough enforcement, and we have taken note of that.

“We have had to spend time doing enforcement to get it right the first time so while the figures in the report are not particularly flattering, we have plans to sort them out and they will be increasing.

“Despite (the data) looking like a bad news story, there is good news there as well.”