4 replies to this topic

[ChannelGraphs]

UK government is set withdraw 22 incident response units (IRUs) from service on the 31 December

 

more info : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35147384 & https://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2015/12/21/concern-over-30-reduction-specialist-terror-incident-equipment

Edited by ChannelGraphs, 21 December 2015 - 11:39 PM.

[Wkboy714]

Sigh.

[rescue_nerd]

Govs pull such stunts all the time. Look how they cut the budget on essential stuff like health care every year. This'll come crashing down on us one day.

[Ben12]

I feel for you Brits. I hear those IRUs are quite useful... 

[TACRfan]

I hate hearing things like this but you have to think if its needed or not, depending on different factors: County size, county population, Hazards (Oil refinery's etc) and possible targets for a terrorist incidents. If the county in question has non of these then it might not be needed for that county to have one and it maybe more financially wise to have them come from other county as mutual aid.

 

This is ok for these because they are specialist units and are not used on a day to day basis however cutting frontline appliances such as your standard pump or ladder is far from ok. i have always said when they are thinking of cutting a frontline appliance in a big town/city that maybe they should look at replacing it with a smaller RRV Which would be ideal for small incident such as car fires, bin fires, people stuck in lifts etc.

 

Where i am from in Suffolk they have replaced there old appliances with brand new 64, 14 and 65 reg volvo's but now they are thinking of scrapping a few in two major towns and a village, The village in question it is necessary to have a large appliance as it would take a while for another crew from another station to reach the incident, The towns however are different, insted of shutting down stations they are talking of removing the third appliance from both Bury st edmunds and ipsich ( cant remember which station in Ipswich ) Fire stations, this would be an ideal place to have a smaller 2,3 or 4 crewed RRV.

 

I also have said that the fire service and this is the same for police and ambulance that they should do bulk orders of vehicles rather than have it on a county to county basis, at the moment it is all over the place. for example Suffolk has new volvos, Norfolk has scanias and MAN's and essex uses scanias and dennis's. I think they should buy appliances on a country wide basis and then its down to specific countys to purchase special appliences