Firefighters have warned that Islington could be regularly left without any fire engines if cost-cutting plans go ahead.

The proposals would leave the borough with just two fire engines and it is feared stations will be “empty” when crews are called away to other parts of London.

Colin Jones, who has worked at Holloway fire station for more than a decade, said the cuts will damage the brigade’s ability to deal with multiple incidents.

Speaking on Wednesday at a public meeting on plans to axe 13 fire engines, including one in Holloway, he said: “We’ll have two fire engines for the whole borough. When you lose 13 machines, you lose flexibility. You no longer have a pump that can fill in the gaps.

“The guys at my station are of the opinion that that flexibility is completely gone. If you send pumps down the road to Hackney, suddenly the borough is empty. But if you have two machines there [at Holloway], you have that flexibility.”

Responding to the concerns, London Fire Brigade commissioner Ron Dobson said: “The idea is that we provide a strategic fire cover for the whole of London and all our fire engines contribute to attendance times, so it’s not just fire engines at Islington fire stations that contribute to attendance times in Islington. All our fire engines do.”

The LFB faces a budget cut of £11.5m in the next financial year – with £5.1m already identified for “departmental and efficiency savings”.

The proposal to cut 13 engines would save £11.8m, leaving £5.2m to be reinvested or held over till next year.

The other proposal, backed by the majority of members of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority, would instead make savings by introducing a system of “alternate crewing”, whereby one crew would operate a fire engine and a “special appliance”, including two fire rescue units designed to deal with complex emergencies such as road and rail accidents.

This would mean that a station’s fire engine would lie unmanned if a crew had been deployed elsewhere in a “special appliance” and vice versa.

• Keywords
  FIRE STATIONS, FIRE ENGINES
• Geographical keyword
  ISLINGTON (LONDON BOROUGH)