Fire Authority votes to approve proposals on future of capital’s fire service

London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority has voted to approve the final version of the draft fifth London Safety Plan (LSP5).

The Authority needs to meet budget savings of £45 million over the next two years and the measures in the Plan, which sets out how the Brigade will work over the next three years, will meet £29 million of those savings.

At a meeting of Authority members this afternoon (Thursday 12 September), Chairman James Cleverly used his casting vote to ‘approve the final version of the fifth London Safety Plan’ after eight members voted for the proposals, eight voted against and one member abstained.

In summary the Plan (which was revised and presented on 18 July) includes:

• The closure of 10 fire stations
• Reducing the number of fire engines (pumping appliances) by 14
• Reducing the number of fire rescue units (specialist rescue vehicles) from 16 to14
• Reducing minimum crewing levels on fire rescue units from 5 firefighters to 4
• Reducing the number of firefighter posts
• Introducing alternate crewing arrangements at some stations
• Reducing the number of station and group managers to a total of 256, and then ultimately a further reduction to 200

The implementation date proposed for the measures in LSP5 is Thursday, 9 January 2014

You can view the full version of the Fifth London Safety Plan here.