Warwickshire firefighters have training drills delayed as part of cost-saving measures

The county’s chief fire officer Ben Brook this week acknowledged some training had been “paused” so that Warwickshire Fire and Rescue can utilise its new hot fire facility in Rugby, which is scheduled to open in January.

Concern was raised by Penny Barry, a parish councillor from Bidford, who registered to ask questions at Warwickshire County Council’s resources, fire and rescue overview and scrutiny committee.

Among them was why training had been cancelled, “sometimes at very short notice” for the firefighters.

Mr Brook replied: “We do all we can not to cancel training courses.

“There has been some disruption to our hot fire training.

"That is because we are spending quite a lot of money with third-party venues to do that and now, I am pleased to say, we have a state-of-the-art hot fire training facility at Rugby, so we have paused a small amount of training so we can do it cost effectively.”

Support came from Councillor Andy Crump (Con, Southam, Stockton & Napton), the county’s political lead on fire and rescue.

“My commitment when I became portfolio holder was to invest in training,” he said.

“We were going to have the training centre at Southam, which didn’t transpire, but we have invested £4million-plus in the new Minerva training centre at Rugby so we don’t have to spend time, money and effort sending our firefighters out of the county.

“They will be in the new, state-of-the-art training centre at Rugby which officially opens in January, I think, so it makes sense to slightly defer some of the training that was going to take place out of the county in November and December so they can go to our own facility.

“There is less travelling time and they are also available to respond to an emergency in places like Rugby if necessary.”

Ms Barry also asked whether there was any prospect of revisiting a merger with West Midlands Fire Service, something Cllr Crump was keen to scotch.

“I have made it clear since I have been portfolio holder – since 2018 – that it wouldn’t be the right decision for us to merge with West Midlands,” he said,

“There is a different culture and I felt we would be subsumed. I think having our own identity suits Warwickshire best, that was my undertaking when I became portfolio holder.

“I have never had any discussions or meetings with West Midlands to talk about merging. Mr Brook has been with Warwickshire Fire & Rescue for four-and-a-half years, we spoke (about that) earlier and he hasn’t either."