00:00A noisy protest outside Kent Fire and Rescue headquarters as firefighters, union representatives
00:06and campaigners made their opposition clear. They're fighting against proposals that could
00:11see on-call fire stations close, such as Grain, Wye, Chillum, Westerham and Cliff,
00:18as well as removing attached on-call sections from four whole-time fire stations,
00:23including Heron Bay, Deal, Tunbridge Wells and Favresham. A number of fire engines will
00:29also be relocated to match demand, which is higher, during the day. These changes are
00:34dramatic, which worries protesters. Seconds count in a fire and closing your fire station
00:41undoubtedly will put the public more at risk. Puts our firefighters at risk while we're waiting
00:46for other appliances to attend. Intrinsically makes stations and communities unsafe. We've
00:52got a lot of very committed people to try and help our community that we live in and we do
00:58an amazing job and that's going to be taken away. And moving a fire engine from somewhere
01:04that can cover the M25, in my case, within five minutes and the closest one is now 15 minutes
01:10away, that weight for people who are in trouble and need help is just going to extend. Strike
01:15action is not off the table. Any type of industrial action is not off the table for the members
01:20of Kent. The people protesting today fear the proposals could leave some communities with
01:25less cover. While Kent Fire and Rescue say that the changes are based on demand, data and
01:30risk. That disagreement is why today's debate became heated and why the plans have now been
01:35paused for six weeks. So what we're trying to do is convert where we have stations where
01:40there's very little demand and quite difficult to recruit firefighters as well after many years
01:45of trying. Convert that money into creating whole time firefighters where it means we get
01:51much more guaranteed daytime cover where we have our greatest risk. So it's an ability
01:56to actually improve our service, get more productivity and literally make sure that we end up with
02:04more home fire safety visits, more ability to go into people's homes, give them advice
02:08and at the same time equally cover through changes in other ways our different kind of peak periods
02:14which tend to be morning afternoon with rush hour. We go to far more road crashes nowadays than
02:18we go to fires. Counselors felt that more time was needed before those proposals were ready
02:23to go out to a public consultation. So I proposed a short cross party working group to look at some
02:29granular detail on some of these issues. Can we find alternative proposals which will make
02:34both the financial but operational requirements. It's about our role as elected members ensuring
02:38that we're doing everything that we can. So if there is a public consultation that's got
02:43the possible options which we have confidence in as we move forward. I feel that where Vince,
02:49the Labour guy, has basically come up with an amendment where we can then look over the
02:53papers longer is a very good idea because we've only had four weeks to look at a 400 page document.
03:00So while the immediate decision has been paused, the debate over the future of fire cover in
03:05Kenton-Medway is far from over. Kristen Hawthorne, KMTV, Maidstone.
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