FUTURE full-time 999 cover out of Hereford fire station  will come down to one engine with a crew as few as four.

Hereford & Worcester Fire & Rescue Authority (HWFRA) has backed a compromise to Hereford station losing one of its two full-time crews.

Two crews will be available full-time over 12 hours during the day with the station’s second engine being covered by a retained crew over 12 hours at night.

A third engine remains retained as at present.

But the option assumes a crew as few as four for the full-time engine.

The vote for the cut was passed at Hereford Shirehall this morning with two abstentions and commits the fire service and authority to exploring the feasibility of the second engine being covered at by a different full-time shift pattern.

A report on that option – called day crew plus – is due before HWFRA within the next 6-12 months.

An amendment to implement day crew plus as an alternative fell by 18 votes to five.

Members heard that, to secure savings, full-time crews could come down to as few as four unless some £800,000 was released from the service’s reserves to support the current five.

Four, members heard, was considered “safe” but the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) argues strongly against this.

HWFRA was voting on a savings plan called Community Risk Management (CRM) drawn up to cover the service’s projected budget gap of more than £2 million by 2016-17.

Under the first draft of CRM  - which outline cuts in funding for frontline services – Hereford would have lost an appliance with full-time cover down to a single engine backed up by a retained crew.

Ledbury and Tenbury will lose one of their two retained crews as originally proposed.

 The approved option saves just over £1.4 million leaving a shortfall of £236,000.

HWFRA member  Cllr  Richard Udell said that the compromise allowed for “minimisation” of damage caused by government imposed cuts that neither the authority or the service wanted.

Fellow HWFRA member Cllr Jim Kenyon warned: “We’re not playing with lives, we’re making decisions on lives.”

Speaking after the meeting, Julian Jenkins, of the FBU, said that despite the compromise, service remained reduced.