THE region’s fire service will not look at hiring an extra 100 firefighters over the next four years after a councillor’s call was rejected.

Hereford and Worcester Fire Authority turned down a call by Worcester councillor Richard Udall to boost the fire service’s numbers saying the timing was not right.

Cllr Udall had called on fire service bosses to recruit the extra firefighters saying now should be a time when numbers were rising, not falling.

“The situation in fire stations is dire, morale is low, stress is high and those who put their lives at risk to defend us are being treated with contempt,” he said.

“We have been cutting the service at a time when it should be expanding, for the sake of public protection we have to do more.

“We know incidents are increasing and our response rates are slipping; this puts people at risk.”

However, that was refuted by Chief fire officer Nathan Travis, who said the fire service had cut the number of firefighters over the years but was still providing a good-rated service based on recent inspections.

“We’ve probably gone through the last five years where we have had to make some significant efficiencies across the service but done in a safe way,” he told the fire authority’s policy and resources committee on Wednesday (December 2). “You have to look at things like our HMICFRS report which identify, with those reduced numbers of firefighters, we are still providing a ‘good’ service, value for money and we have also responded effectively and efficiently to major incidents such as flooding and Covid.

Mr Travis said employing 100 more fighters across four years would cost at least £5 million which would be “extremely challenging” as it could not be covered by raising council tax and it would exhaust the fire service’s financial services if it went ahead. It would be a significant challenge, if not impossible, within the current financial set-up,” he said.

Authority chairman Cllr Roger Phillips said “the timing was not right” to commit to hiring more firefighters - especially with the pandemic and Brexit.

Cllr Fran Oborksi said it would be better to find out how many more firefighters might be needed when it was clearer how many more homes would be built around Worcestershire in the future - especially with the delay in the review of county’s planning blueprint, the South Worcestershire Development Plan (SWDP). “I wouldn’t want to look at this right now but I am not ruling it out of contention in the future,” she said. “I think it’s just a little bit premature with everything else we have on our plates at the moment.”