Specialist equipment concerns over firefighter job loss threat

Wrexham's Aerial Ladder Platform at the Village Bakery fire on the industrial estate

Campaigners who are fighting to retain Wrexham's second whole-time fire engine want assurances about specialist equipment.

Councillor Becca Martin, who is spearheading the campaign to save the fire engine, said: 

"This is not a campaign just to save the second fire engine for Wrexham, it's about the loss of experienced and highly skilled crews in the area. The consultation by the North Wales Fire and Rescue Authority talks about slashing the numbers of firefighters from 52 to 28 - almost in half. That would leave the largest conurbation in north Wales without a second whole-time crew and reliant on retained firefighters, who aren't always available.

"We know that Wrexham also has a number of specialist appliances - an Ariel Ladder Platform, Technical Rescue Unit and Environmental Protection Unit. These all need specialist crews to staff them and, if full-time firefighters are halved as proposed, then who will be crewing these specialist appliances?"

Cllr Martin, who represents Acton and Maesydre wards, said: 

"Will all these specialist appliances even stay in Wrexham as a result of this? These are huge concerns and on behalf of the campaign I'm writing to the Chief Fire Officer Dawn Docx to get reassurances that the specialist equipment is being considered in this consultation. 

"We've been here before in terms of threats to our fire services. Unless we take a new approach to all our public services - which have been hammered over the past 13 years of Tory rule - we're going to face the same situation further down the road. Public services cannot keep making cuts without putting lives at risk - Tory cuts will cost lives. 

"The Tory government have made matters worse by not funding the pay rise they themselves agreed with firefighters, leaving the NWFRA in a situation of having to find even more money during a time of growing inflationary costs.

"I'm incredibly grateful that we currently have an effective fire and rescue service here in the North - it keeps us safe and protects our communities. Not one house fire death in the past year is testimony to that. But these proposed cuts put that at risk - we need to spell it out that this will impact on the whole of north Wales, which also depends on the expertise of its busiest station here in Wrexham. Without that expertise being available due to the swingeing cuts, we're all losers."