CUTS to fire service provision in Inverclyde have been approved.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Board has agreed the nationwide Service Delivery Review (SDR) which included altering arrangements locally.
The second wholetime appliance at Greenock will be permanently changed from a combined aerial rescue pump (CARP) to a dedicated high reach appliance (HRA), a reduction of 15 firefighter posts in the district.
The pumping capability of the second wholetime appliance (CARP) was temporarily withdrawn in September 2023 and only its high-reach capability has been used since. The CARP will be replaced with a dedicated high-reach vehicle.
A report to the board stated: “Evaluation provides confidence that the temporary configuration is effective and that permanent transition from a CARP to a dedicated HRA is appropriate and deliverable.
“The area has a high density of pumping appliances when compared to other areas with similar risk and demand. This is confirmed by the low levels of incident demand experienced at Greenock and Port Glasgow stations when compared to the other stations with the same number of pumping appliances and the same crewing configurations.
“Demand analysis identified that Greenock has a low level of mobilisations compared to other Scottish stations with two wholetime pumps. Simulation Modelling has evidenced that withdrawing a wholetime pumping appliance from Greenock would have one of the lowest impacts on Second Attending Pumping Appliance response times.
“This is why the operational role of the Greenock CARP was temporarily reduced to that of a dedicated HRA as part of the temporary wholetime pump withdrawals in 2023.”
A second option also proposed changes to how two other local crews are manned but this was not for approval.
