Andrew Dismore

Emergency services special: April 2013

As there have been a lot of announcements concerning the fire and police services lately, I thought I should write to you about what is going on, with reference to the Mayor’s proposed cuts to the fire brigade and the recent announcement of the outcome of the police consultation. 

Fire brigade cuts

As I previously reported to you, there has been something of a standoff between the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) of which I am a member and the Mayor over his cuts to the fire brigade. The Mayor finally threatened legal action unless consultation on the cuts went ahead, so it has now started.

You can access the formal consultation here.

The consultation is on a document known as “draft LSP5” which in short, sets out the cuts which require the closure of 12 fire stations, the removal of 18 fire engines and the loss of 520 front line fire-fighter posts. I refer to the local impact of these cuts below.

Consultation meetings for the public are being held for every Borough. You can access the full list of meetings here.

The meeting for Barnet is linked with Enfield and Haringey:

Thursday, 18 April 7-9pm at Haringey Council Chamber, Haringey Civic Centre, High Road, Wood Green, N22 8LE

The meeting for Camden is:

Thursday, 30 May 7-9pm at McNamara Suite, London Irish Centre, 50-52 Camden Square, London, NW1 9XB

And the meeting for Islington (their cuts impact directly on Camden) is:

Tuesday, 28 May, 7pm-9pm in the Assembly Hall at Islington Town Hall, Upper Street, N1 2UD

And finally the meeting for the City (near to Camden) is: 

Thursday, 9 May 7-9pm, The Main Hall at St Albans Centre, Leigh Place, Baldwins Gardens, Holborn, London EC1N 7AB 

I hope you will be able to attend some or all of these events, (and indeed in other boroughs too, as if you work in another borough, the  fire cover for your workplace  will also  be affected as well as your home) to make sure your views are heard. The meetings are of sufficient length and with adequate information, when compared to the rather farcical police consultation meetings.

The Labour members on LFEPA have also produced a detailed “Frequently Asked Questions” briefing, which you can accesshere.

The Mayor’s case and the answer to it

The Mayor advances three main arguments to support his  cuts: firstly, that they are the result of the Fire Commissioner’s professional opinion; secondly, that attendance times will not worsen; and thirdly as there are fewer fires, we don’t need as many fire engines or fire-fighters.

The answers to these points are not complicated, and are as follows.

The Fire Commissioner made clear in his letter to the Mayor before the threatened legal action, that his proposals were being advanced in response to the budget cuts the Mayor was demanding,  amounting  to £45 million, and  which cannot be achieved other than by front line cuts. The brigade has already cut £66million whilst generally protecting the front line. It is disingenuous of the Mayor to refer so selectively to the Commissioner’s opinion without it being in context. Moreover, these cuts are not necessary. If the Mayor cancelled his policy of cutting the Council Tax by the equivalent of just 1p a day this year and then into the future, there would be sufficient funds to mean these cuts would not be needed.

Secondly, the Mayor’s reference to attendance times not being affected is to the target attendance times, not the actual ones. In Camden for example, attendance times will increase by 45 seconds and across London as a whole by 15 seconds for the first engine and 26 seconds for the second.  4.8 million Londoners will see worse times compared to now, and those who live or work close to fire stations facing closure will see times increase between 4 and 10 minutes. A domestic fire canquadruple in intensity in just 2 minutes, so this is important. It can be a matter of life and death, as a recent incident in south London illustrated.

Thirdly, it is true that there are fewer fires, due to the successful fire prevention activities of our fire-fighters. However, this work is also to be cut. But the key point is that no matter whether there are a lot of fires or far fewer, the time it takes for a fire engine to travel to the fire will still be the same from where it starts the call. If a fire station closes, then the attendance times will be worse as the fire engine providing cover from a station further afield will take longer to get there, as the example below illustrates.

The impact on Camden

The proposal is to close Belsize Fire Station and also neighbouring Clerkenwell, in Islington. Clerkenwell attends twice as many incidents in Camden as in Islington, and is in effect an extra station for Camden. The original plan, which was revised and is not now subject to consultation, would have redeployed from elsewhere an extra fire engine at Euston, but this proposal has been dropped.

For a statistical and factual briefing on the fire service in Camden, which Labour LFEPA members have compiled, click here.

A good real example of the consequences is the recent fire at Hereward House School in Strathray Gardens, which brings home just how dangerous Mayor Boris Johnson’s proposed cuts to the fire brigade are in Camden.  The fire engine from Belsize Fire Station was at the scene in less than two minutes, and immediately got to work. The next to arrive was from West Hampstead, which took 7 minutes to arrive: not their fault, they just had much further to come. It is lucky the school fire occurred in half term when the pupils were not there and whilst Belsize Fire Station was still open, or the consequences could have been far more serious.

The impact on Barnet

This is not as severe as for inner London Boroughs, who fare the worst from the cuts. In fact,  Hendon Fire Station is proposed to get an extra fire engine redeployed from elsewhere,  under the plan ( restoring the one which was cut not all that long ago), which I welcome. The original proposal to cut Mill Hill Fire Station has also been dropped, after the campaign I led to save it. The net result is that Barnet overall will see a small improvement in its actual attendance times.

For a statistical and factual briefing on the fire service in Barnet, which Labour LFEPA members have compiled, click here.

The real impact on Barnet would be seen if there were major incidents like we have experienced before. For example in the recent past, the fire in the car breaker’s yard under the M1and damaged the motorway’s structure; the huge fire at Beaufort Park which destroyed a tower block under construction and nearly took the police call centre and national computer with it; or the waste timber merchant’s fire at Staples Corner, all of which drew resources in from other stations including those under threat of closure.

Even small fires can be affected: last Summer I was visiting Hendon Fire Station when a fire call came in to attend a house fire on the North Circular.  Due to traffic, by the time we arrived, Belsize’s fire engine (due to be removed under the plan) was already there and tackling this blaze.

Fire Cuts overall: conclusion

The fact is that the fire brigade is a London-wide network and reductions in other boroughs affect the whole. And this is not the end of the story. Further cuts of £9 million are already been talked about. The cost of a one fire engine station is about £1.45m a year and a two engine station, £2.2 million, so it can be seen that if these cuts go through, that will only be the beginning.

it is interesting to note that Conservative Councils including  Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea are opposing the cuts.

This is why the consultation is so important. Please participate by giving your views on line or by post, come to the public meetings, and also sign up to our petition to save the emergency services.

Barnet and Camden Police stations to go under Boris Johnson’s cuts

In the final version of the Mayor’s crime plan, Barnet and Camden both see police stations closed and to be sold off. Barnet will lose Golders Green and Whetstone, and Camden will lose Hampstead and Albany Street, with West Hampstead’s front counter closing too.

There will only be 4 “contact points” replacements in each borough, open for just one hour on Wednesday and Thursday evenings and Saturday afternoons.

I believe people who rely on Golders Green police station will feel cheated by this announcement. While originally canvassed for closure, it was thought to have been saved, when it was left off the final consultation closure list. Now it is to go after all. This is a slap in the face for many in the Jewish community, who will also be disadvantaged with the contact points opening on Saturday afternoons.

In Camden, while it is welcome that the Met. saw sense in agreeing that the 24/7 station should be in Kentish Town after all, as I and many local people proposed, it is a disgrace that Hampstead  is being completely closed and is to be sold off,  despite the active local campaign to keep it going. At the least, I believe that the self contained cottage building could have been used as a patrol base and for the contact point locally.

Police “contact points”

So far as I can see, the contact points are being designed to fail. After all the fuss about whether they should be in coffee shops or post offices, in the end they have ended up with a decision to locate them  in police buildings after all. And so much for the Mayor’s promise that no front counter would close unless an equivalent alternative was provided, as they have very reduced hours: see above. I suspect that people will forget when they are open and few people will use them as a result, leading before not very long, to their discontinuance.

In Camden, they will be at:

Camden Town with Primrose Hill SNT base, 12 Greenland Rd NW1

Swiss Cottage SNT base, Station House 9-13 Swiss Terrace NW6

West Hampstead SNT base, 179-181 West end Lane NW6

Highgate SNT base, 105 Highgate Rd NW5

and in Barnet:

Golders Green SNT base, 61 Golders Green Rd NW11 (not the police station)

East Finchley SNT base, 113 High rd N2

Brunswick Park SNT base, 29 Friern Barnet Rd N11

Cat Hill EN4 (details not yet provided)

After much debate as to what their functions would be, and several changes of mind, it seems that it will be possible to report crime at contact points after all, as well as report lost property and accidents, make an appointment to meet an officer and obtain crime prevention or other advice.

Police officer numbers

The crime plan is also relying on the same dubious statistics as before over the claimed future increase in police numbers. No wonder the mayor has been asked to justify his claims by the independent UK Statistics Authority, which he has so far failed to do!

Comparing May 2010 to 2015, Barnet will see 34 fewer officers and Camden 133 fewer: neither borough will see an increase.

Safer Neighbourhood Teams and  the “new policing model”

The SNTs as we have come to know them will cease to exist. Wards will be grouped together into clusters, with 4 in Barnet and 3 in Camden. The new teams will be answerable to an inspector for the whole of each cluster and the team will be deployable anywhere in the cluster, rather than being ring fenced on a ward basis, as before.

Each ward will have allocated to it as “ring fenced” just one PC and one PCSO, compared to the old basic model for Barnet of 1 sergeant 2 PCs and 6 PCSOs, and for Camden, 1 sergeant 2 PCs and 3 PCSOs ( this reflected the different size of ward in Barnet as compared to Camden) . There will be an identified sergeant, but  he or she will be deployable anywhere in the cluster and will in practice have day to day supervision of the cluster team on duty, as in effect there will only be one sergeant on duty per cluster at any one time.

Of the total number in the cluster, only 20% of the local officers will be available at any one time (although the hours of operation will be longer than for the previous SNT model). So this means that only half a dozen or so officers will actually be on duty covering each of the new clusters of 5 or more wards each. Hardly an improvement on the SNTs they are due to replace!

Local accountability

The role of the former Safer Neighbourhood Panels will change. For example instead of setting local policing priorities in conjunction with the local SNT sergeant, priorities will now be set by the Inspector for the cluster, thought the panels should be consulted.

On a borough basis, there are to be new Safer Neighbourhood Boards but the details of who will be on these and what their role will be has still not been announced.

I hope you have found this briefing informative and of interest. If you have any questions, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them. And please participate in the fire cuts consultation!

Yours sincerely,
 

Andrew Dismore

Labour London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden.