Following a consultation and review, the London Fire Commissioner has made the decision to keep two fire engines at Kingston Fire Station rather than moving its second fire engine to New Malden Fire Station.
The move was initially proposed in 2016 to help even out attendance times across London. The London Fire Brigade continues to meet our London-wide average attendance time targets of getting the first fire engine to an incident in six minutes and the second in eight minutes. At the time, average attendance times for the second fire engine in the Royal Borough of Kingston were slightly over the target of eight minutes. Brigade modelling showed that moving the fire engine would remedy that by making it easier for it to get to more incidents more quickly.
In March 2017, when the decision was being made, the most recent data showed that performance was improving, with Kingston fire engines getting to incidents more quickly than previously. With this new evidence it was decided to delay the decision regarding moving the second fire engine at Kingston and review it in a year’s time.
Since then response times across London have improved even more, thanks in part to a new mobilising system (Vision). The system uses GPS tracking technology which means that fire engines are mobilised to emergencies according to their proximity to incidents, a change from the previous system, where engines were mobilised from the closest fire station, rather than where the actual engines were.
The improvements meant that attendance times in the Royal Borough of Kingston were no longer over the average attendance time target and so there was no longer any need to rearrange the location of resources.
Deputy Mayor for Fire and Resilience, Fiona Twycross, said: “The safety of Londoners is the London Fire Brigade’s top priority and in this case there has been a review, which I’m pleased to say has resulted in the confirmation that Kingston is to keep both of its fire engines.”