Is Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service being stretched to the limit?

Worries have been aired over the county’s fire and rescue service’s response to a factory blaze in Nelson Lane, Warwick, which coincided with a lorry fire on the M40 near Gaydon in the early hours of Tuesday October 5. And it is feared the situation will worsen once the planned closure of Warwick fire station goes ahead.

Chris White, MP for both towns, is investigating the speed of response to the factory fire.

He said: “It seems there is some discrepancy between what the fire service has said and what local residents have said.

“I have spoken about the case for the retention of Warwick station and the questions over the geographical provision of fire cover.

“Hopefully this investigation will see if this issue is thrown up.

“Will people be able to say we are proving that cover is well provided?”

Former firefighter Geoff Franklin, from Hinckley, served in Warwickshire for 30 years.

He claims mid-Warwickshire was “virtually stripped of fire cover” by the two “medium sized” incidents (See letters, page 24).

Gary Phillips, Warwickshire’s deputy chief fire officer, said: “Both incidents were dealt with efficiently and the service achieved its standard in both incidents, which is the deployment of a fire engine within ten minutes.

“During both incidents the fire engine at Warwick station was unavailable due to insufficient on-call firefighter availability.

“However this had no impact on our response or our firefighting tactics.”