News Crews set for strike
The Fire Brigades Union is planning strike action if the fire cuts in Goole go ahead.
The FBU made the announcement after the East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC) voted in favour of the cuts.
Tomorrow, Friday, April 11, the fire authority - made up of 21 members from unitary councils in the Humber and East Riding - will have the final say on the matter when they vote on the controversial proposals. If, as expected, the authority upholds the ERYC's decision, the FBU says it will take matters a step further and may even press ahead with strike action.
Ian Murray, regional chair of the Yorkshire & Humberside Fire Brigades Union, said: "If things go the wrong way on the 11th, I'm afraid our campaign will only then really be just beginning and I will be coming for more support, as it is highly likely that the message from our branches is that we up the campaign to an industrial on - up to and including strike action.
"Certainly this is not a route we want to take but one that our members may demand of us."
The FBU was this week joined by MPs and Goole councillors in condemning the East Riding Council's decision to support the fire cuts in Goole.
Last Wednesday an overwhelming majority of county councillors voted for cuts to the fire service across the region, including plans to remove one full-time fire crew from Goole Fire Station on Larsen Road.
This week, as the inevitable political mud-slinging began following the vote, it emerged that virtually all the Tories and some Lib Dems voted for the fire service's proposals.
However, the FBU is still hoping the fire authority will overturn the decision when it meets tomorrow, April 11.
Goole MP Ian Cawsey, who recently spoke out in parliament against the cuts, said the Tories' stance on the fire cuts was "nothing short of a betrayal of our town and the surrounding area".
He said: "Whilst other councils in the Humberside area have voted to try to protect their fire service, the Tories in the East Riding have given a green light to the fire authority that downgrading Goole is acceptable. It may be to the Tory Party, but it's not to anyone in Goole."
The Labour MP added: "However tough I thought this fight was going to be, I never thought we would end up being betrayed by the very people who are supposed to represent us. It is a dark day for Goole."
The council, which has a strong Tory majority, voted to go along with the recommendations of the Fire Review Panel, set up to look into the ramifications of the fire cuts throughout the East Riding.
At the council meeting in Beverley, Goole councillors Pat O'Neil and Keith Moore moved an amendment to ask the fire service to revise their plans, but it was rejected.
"This would have given everybody a chance to comment on how the fire service could use their record 5.8 per cent increase in funding for an improved service - not a reduced one,' said Mr Cawsey.
Mr Cawsey said he did not hold out much hope of the fire authority reversing the ERYC's decision.
He added that it was "perverse" that the future of Goole's fire service now rested with the votes of councillors from other authorities.
"They are looking at their areas and may take the view that, if the local council supports the cuts, why should they do anything different?"
Both Mr Cawsey and Howden MP David Davis put political differences aside recently in speaking out against the cuts in parliament.
It's understood Mr Davis had personally called on East Riding's Tory councillors to vote against the plans and that he is now is privately seething that they decided to vote in favour.
In parliament the Tory MP had thrown the findings of the FSEC - the system by which the fire service judges fire risk in various areas - into doubt.
He said the FSEC had "dramatically underestimated" risks to individuals, particularly to elderly people living in rural areas such as Howden.
Mr Davis said elderly residents who used oil or container-based gas heating had "as much right to a fire service as anyone living in the middle of a town".
"I am worried that one of the calculations to justify the cuts underestimates the risk in rural areas," he said.
Seven Conservative councillors and some Lib Dem and independent councillors voted against the cuts.
Among them was Goole councillor Beryl Beck-Taylor, who has been roundly criticised for failing to show her opposition to the proposals while she was part of the fire review panel.
Howdenshire councillors Mark Preston, Charlie Bayram and Paul Robinson also voted against the cuts, as did Snaith and Airmyn councillors Caroline Fox - who stood down from the review panel - and Gordon Megson.
This week Cllr Beck-Taylor - who stormed out of a meeting of Goole Town Council on Monday in protest at being pilloried for her stance on the fire cuts - called for an apology from councillors and MPs who had criticised her decision to abstain from a vote on the plans at Goole Town Council.
She said: "Just to get the record straight: I did not vote for anything at any time before now.
"I have never voted for cuts in the fire service; there is nothing further from the truth, but I have been accused of doing so."
Cllr Beck-Taylor said she decided to vote against the cuts because the review had been "rushed through".
She said the panel had not been able to carry out test runs from various parts of Goole to the fire station, which she believes would have proved that the four-minute time frame for firefighters to get from home to the station - a key test as to whether the fire service proposals could in fact put lives at risk - would have been "unrealistic".
"I think, on reflection, if this had been taken into account, the report's findings on the Goole station would have been different," said Cllr Beck-Taylor.
She is now calling for a new consultation process to be carried out in Goole to look again into the proposed cuts.
She said the pending planning application for a Biomass power station at the Rawcliffe Road industrial estate - which was currently being considered - made a new consultation process crucial.
However, Ian Cawsey remained unrepentant despite Cllr Beck-Taylor's apparent U-turn.
A spokesman from his office insisted that Cllr Beck-Taylor's 'no' vote did not get her off the hook.
He said: "Cllr Beryl Beck-Taylor's last-minute U-turn, from being part of the review panel that recommended cuts at Goole Fire Station, to then voting against the cuts after the local fury at her actions, must be a source of deep embarrassment to the local Liberal Democrats.
"It must not be forgotten that her review-panel report was used as the justification by the East Riding Tories to vote for the cuts and, with her failure to support Labour's amendment at the council meeting to shelve the cuts in Goole, means that she has a lot of explaining to do. An apology for letting the town down would be a start."
The only caveat that comes with the fire cuts in Goole is that the second full-time crew will not be downgraded to a retained, or part-time, crew until there is sufficient staff to provide cover.
But Cllr Keith Moore said: "We know already there are areas where they can't recruit and retain firefighters - Howden is a good example."
The fear now is that even more pressure will be brought to bear on Goole's one full-time fire crew.
Howdenshire councillor Paul Robinson said he was "extremely disappointed" that fellow East Riding councillors failed to vote against the plans.
"When one studies the mathematics of these proposals the people who are going to lose out through longer response times are those in rural communities in Howdenshire, something I and many residents I represent find totally unacceptable," he said.
Irvin Hunt, area spokesman for the Fire Brigades Union, said: "Whilst the Tories' parliamentary candidate Andrew Percy and Cllr Fox worked hard to oppose the cuts and present an acceptable face for the Tory Party, they have been let down by the East Riding Conservative club."
Goole town mayor Cllr Jean Kitchen said: "I'm extremely disappointed about this news."
Published on 10th April 2008 in News.
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