Cornwall: No cuts in kernow

Cornwall County Council has voted to refer its cuts proposals back to the CFO for further risk assessment. Any future package will be referred back to the full county council. The campaign continues.  

Cornwall County Council voted Tuesday 19 June to refer its cuts proposals back to the chief fire officer (CFO) for further risk assessment. Any future package will be referred back to the full county council. The FBU-led campaign to protect communities in Cornwall continues. 

The cuts proposals – driven purely by financial considerations - would have seen the loss of 35 wholetime firefighters, one in six of the wholetime workforce of 206.

The proposals would have also seen night time cuts at Camborne and Falmouth fire stations that would have meant that between 6pm and 8am the fire service would take longer to get to 999 incidents. This would have reduced emergency response capability across the whole of Cornwall and would mean Cornwall would be the only county in England without any around-the-clock, immediate response fire crews.

The FBU has been campaigning against these cuts since January and on Tuesday June 19 firefighters and emergency fire control staff from all over Cornwall joined local and regional FBU officials to witness the decision making process.

FBU members lobby councillors

As county councillors entered the building, FBU members lobbied them heavily.

Councillors were shown a petition - gathered by firefighters from across Cornwall and signed by thousands of members of the public - which underlined that the cuts had no support and that, if consultation meant anything, must be rejected.

Says Terry Nottle, brigade secretary, Cornwall:

“FBU members in Cornwall have worked tirelessly and selflessly to ensure the profile of the campaign has been as high as possible and reached as many people as possible. If it was not for the organised and effective campaign run by FBU members the outcome would undoubtedly have been different.”

Campaign not yet over

Terry added: “The campaign is not yet over but if we continue in the same way that we have up to now then we will stop these cuts completely.

“But our fight should not end here! It is time that the same county councillors that wanted these cuts, the same ones that love to be photographed with local fire crews before an election, wake up to the fact that the fire brigade in Cornwall has been underfunded for years.

“The eulogies given by councillors at the meeting were welcome but what firefighters and control room staff want are not kind words, but better equipment, better training, more firefighters on the ground and of course good working conditions.”