Fears allayed over possible loss of second fire appliance for Grantown
The chief of the local fire service in Badenoch and Strathspey has said on-going efforts to recruit more firefighters are paying off.
There are four on-call retained appliances at three fire stations in the strath - Kingussie, Aviemore and two fire engines based in Grantown.
There are three on-call community response units based in Carrbridge, Nethy Bridge and Newtonmore.
But the latest figures for April to September this year reveal that the availability of crews for the second fire appliance in Grantown stood at just 18.66 per cent.
The figure is 88.70 per cent for the town’s first appliance and 92.69 per cent for Aviemore and 83.85 per cent for Kingussie.
This prompted local Highland councillor Bill Lobban (Independent) to ask if the second Grantown fire engine would be better deployed elsewhere.
He observed at the latest meeting of the local authority’s Badenoch and Strathspey area committee in the town that the fire appliance was ‘almost always not available’ because of the crew shortage.
Councillor Lobban asked: “Is it not time to reconsider where this appliance is now based?”
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service station commander Nick Nethercott responded: “This has been a subject of conversation for us all.
“If we look back at the beginning of the year we had nine employees and we are now at 12 (for Grantown).”
He said the process to get recruits through the door to being available for 999 call-outs takes six months.
The fire boss said there were two new firefighters who had just qualified and he now expects the Grantown availability figures to rise.
A qualified firefighter is also soon to be transferred to the town’s station with the next few weeks and there is another individual currently being recruited.
Mr Nethercott said: “We are hopeful that within the next two to three months we will have 14 firefighters based at the station which is very much getting back to good figures to support two appliances.
“So right now relocating this appliance is not something that we are discussing. We are more focussed on getting those numbers back up…
“Grantown is a great station which is really coming together at the moment.”
Mr Nethercott also told the meeting that firefighter numbers were picking up in Badenoch.
“We have had a new employee start at Kingussie as numbers there had dropped a bit as well,” he said.
“We have three individuals in the process of being recruited for Kingussie and three for Newtonmore as well so we have actually had a very good spike in recruitment.”
As a general guide the maximum number of firefighters for a fire station with one appliance is 12 and for a two- pump station is 20 staff.
However, the fire chief said this did depend of the general availability of crew members.
Mr Nethercott said he was aiming to get a 13th firefighter based in Aviemore to improve availability.
He said as well as improving fire cover this would also release a day time full-time firefighter based in the village who could be moved ‘to fill gaps’ as and when required locally.
The number of firefighters based at each of the other local stations at present is Carrbridge (8), Kingussie (8) and Newtonmore (8).
There are currently no firefighters based in Nethy Bridge.
