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Mr. Denis Murphy (Wansbeck) (Lab): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell) on securing this debate. When Northumberland's fire chief, Mr. Hesler, first proposed the changes to the fire and rescue cover, his department had spent about two years working up the proposals. All aspects of the current service were examined in great detail to ensure that, as he said,
"the people of Northumberland would have the very best fire and rescue cover coupled with a massive drive on fire prevention."
To that end, the proposals contained details of two new-build fire stations combining an academy and community facilities. The stations would be situated where they would provide the quickest response to the most vulnerable parts of Wansbeck and Blyth Valley. The fire chief said that the locations were crucial to providing good cover for the whole of south-east Northumberland.
I met Mr. Hesler and he took me through the project's details. He assured me that his was the very best possible model for delivering a much improved service. I was disappointed that he and his management team had not worked closely with firefighters in drawing up the new
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structure. In fact, from discussions that I had with firefighters, it became obvious that I had more information than the Fire Brigades Union. I was surprised that an organisation undergoing such a major restructuring did not feel it worth while to involve in their discussions the very people who are responsible for delivering the service.
During the public consultation process, a problem arose in obtaining planning permission for the new fire station at East Sleekburn, as it was to be located in the centre of the village. The planning authority offered two other sites: the first to the west of the spine road on Brock lane and the second to the east of the spine road by the East Sleekburn bypass—in effect, just across the road from the original site. Both sites would have offered a much larger and more open space for the new community fire station. More importantly, they were in line with the original model.
For reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley alluded to but which have never been clear, the fire authority rejected the offered sites and proposed instead to relocate the new station to West Hartford, five miles away. It had taken two years to complete the model for public consumption. It was the best available, but within 48 hours it had been changed dramatically.
If the latest proposals are accepted, the people that my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley and I represent will be subjected to much greater fire-response times. I understand that the brigade's target is to get two pumps to a domestic house fire within 10 minutes. The available statistics make it easy to work out the highest-risk areas, and to make plans about where to target fire prevention and where fire stations should be sited to ensure the quickest response. I am informed that the new structure will cost more than £10 million. That money would be well spent if it improved fire cover and fire prevention. However, serious questions are being asked about the proposals.
Comparing the blue-light response times in the current and the new proposals shows that, taking geographical information into account, the run times from East Sleekburn would be better than the existing times in three out of four cases. However, the proposed change of location to West Hartford would lead to slower response times. For example, it would take more than six minutes longer to travel from West Hartford to Asda Ashington. Starker differences in response times are evident if we compare the East Sleekburn and West Hartford proposals. For example, the response time for the journey between West Hartford and Cambois is slower by almost five minutes. The average run time from West Hartford to Ashington is more than 10 minutes, so the implications for the journey to Newbiggin cause great concern.
It is acknowledged that the initial response for Wansbeck will come from the nearest fire station, but problems will arise when only one appliance is available, and the second appliance has to be despatched from the alternative station. A much greater proportion of Wansbeck and other areas would be at risk if the new fire station were located at West Hartford. The area north of Stakeford and south of Bedlington would be at increased risk if a second appliance had to be despatched from the other station.
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Additionally, there are discrepancies between the table of run times and the geographical information supplied by the fire service. A run time from West Hartford to Woodhorn roundabout is shown as 8.2 minutes. However, the 10-minute run time boundary for West Hartford stops just north of Stakeford, which is some five miles away. Similarly, the average run time from the existing station at Ashington to Woodhorn is 5 minutes and 51 seconds, but the run time from the new station at Pegswood, which is a mile further away, is given as 5 minutes and 44 seconds.
The area to be covered by the new fire stations will be much larger and the fire crews could be anywhere in that area at any given time. It is essential, therefore, to have times from one side of the area to the other, using real addresses. A timed run is exactly that. The chief fire officer has not included the time from when a 999 call is answered to the pumps being deployed and the time it takes the fire crew to arrive at the address of the incident. In a real situation, it would obviously take longer than the quoted response times.
As my hon. Friend said, we currently have four stations covering both constituencies, providing excellent response times. For a fraction of the cost of the new structure, the existing facilities could be improved to provide a training academy and community facilities. The headquarters at Morpeth were recently refurbished at substantial cost to provide modern accommodation. There was extensive rewiring for the provision of IT facilities, and new carpets and redecoration, providing first class office accommodation. The fire station at Morpeth is also in good order and includes facilities for female staff.
The Ashington station has also received substantial investment to provide new female facilities. It has also been rewired. The Blyth station is less than 20 years old and has recently had an £80,000 extension to provide female facilities. The station is in very good order and situated in the heart of Blyth. The Cramlington station is only nine years old and understandably is state of the art. When the land was provided for the station, there was a covenant demanding its restoration to wetland in the event of the building becoming redundant. This station is not part of the new proposals, and it would be a huge waste of public money for the new facility to be demolished. It would be possible to site the academy and the garage at any existing site in south-east Northumberland, enabling the CCBRN—conventional, chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear—unit to be situated along with one pump, enabling two crews to be available for community safety.
I am confident that with a small investment we could improve the existing excellent facilities, providing a new academy with first class community facilities, which would give the response times that would protect the public and roll out the fire prevention programme. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to question closely the new proposals from the chief fire officer as they leave important and dangerous gaps in fire cover for south-east Northumberland.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Sylvia Heal):
Order. I remind hon. Members that although on this occasion we have more than the usual time for an Adjournment debate, this subject has a narrow geographic focus.
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3.38 pm
Mr. Peter Atkinson (Hexham) (Con): I shall take the chance that I can stay in order in this debate on the perhaps slightly tenuous ground that I represent a constituency in another part of Northumberland. However, fire appliances from Morpeth have been called to the eastern side of my constituency, so I have a peripheral interest that I hope will keep me in order.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth Valley (Mr. Campbell)—I call him my hon. Friend because he used to be my pair in the days when we had such things—on introducing a debate on this issue of wide public concern in the county of Northumberland. I also echo the point that the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Mr. Murphy) made about that public concern. If changes are to be made to the fire service, it is essential that the public are carried along with them, but that has clearly not happened. Many people in south-east Northumberland are worried about the proposals, as are my constituents who might be affected.
Interestingly, a few years ago, the fire station in Hexham—it is not in south-east Northumberland, but is part of the Northumberland fire and rescue service—was reorganised. It was changed from a 24-hour manned station to a daytime-only manned station. The point was made that it was important that the fire station should remain in the centre of Hexham, which, despite the changes, was precisely where it went. As there was a problem serving one part of the town, a secondary unmanned fire station was built to allow a pump to be maintained there so that time constraints could be met. That station has closed for various reasons, but a few years ago the fire service was absolutely certain that it needed a fire station in the town centre.
I would like to make only one other point. The hon. Member for Blyth Valley said that he could not understand why the change was needed and the money had to be spent. I do not know whether the Minister can answer that good question, but I will be interested to hear his remarks. I suspect that there is a different agenda. It is in the back of people's minds that the fire service might be regionalised.
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