ROAD crash response figures were not included in the case for cutting full-time fire and rescue cover in the county earlier this year.

Hereford & Worcester Fire and Rescue Service (HWFRS) has confirmed that its fire authority never adopted a response standard for reaching road traffic collisions (RTCs).

Herefordshire councillor and Hereford & Worcester Fire & Rescue Authority (HWFRA) member Jim Kenyon told the Hereford Times today (Wed) that no decisions on fire cover in the county should be taken “unless and until” response figures for RTCs were included in related assessments.

“Frankly, I didn’t know as an authority member that RTC figures weren’t included in the case for cuts, so how many other members didn’t know,” said Cllr Kenyon.

“And if any did, the issue should have been raised for clarification rather than taken on assumption,” he said.

HWFRS said the non-inclusion of RTC figures was in line with the nationally set standards for fires, which were removed in the early 2000s and did not have response standards for collisions.

In a statement, HWFRS said: “The issue has been raised at recent authority meetings and will be considered next time the authority reviews the Service’s response standards.”

The Authority has recently invested in two fire engines with ‘ultra-heavy’ rescue equipment to deal with incidents involving large vehicles or complicated entrapments, with one of these engines based in Hereford.

In addition, the engines at Leintwardine and Ewyas Harold have both recently been upgraded to heavy rescue capabilities in line with a number of other fire engines in the county.

Currently, the average response time to collisions across Herefordshire is 13 minutes, which the service puts down to “remote locations” it can be called to.

HWFRS figures put the number of  RTCs attended in its West District (Herefordshire) at 170 - down from 246 in 2009/10.

Figures put to Herefordshire Council’s cabinet  last week show the numbers killed and seriously injured in RTCs has increased, with 51 between January and August compared with 35 for the same period in 2013.

Earlier this year, the Department of Transport (DoT) released statistics that highlighted 365 casualties on the county’s rural roads over 2013 compared to 156 on urban routes.

Sixty-one of those rural road casualties were recorded as fatalities or serious injuries, compared to 13 on urban routes.

No fatalities were recorded on urban roads compared to five for rural routes.

In October, HWFRA  backed a compromise to Hereford fire station losing one of its two full-time crews in a cuts plan.

The compromise meant 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.

Herefordshire is the only county in the country served by a single full-time fire crew at night.

HWFRA has accepted that the cuts will compromise overall response times in the county, but maintains that, with the retained crews, enough back up is in place.

In voting for the cut, the fire authority committed the service 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 the authority within the next 6-12 months.

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.

The authority 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.