We’ve had personal experience of a house fire and have seen that it takes grip unbelievably fast, very quickly becoming impossible to deal with by yourself.
Most people are lucky enough to have not experienced the horrors of a fire, and if we hadn’t been through it either, we probably wouldn’t have a clue quite how long every second your house blazing actually feels.
It’s with this in mind that the concerns of many over the Island at the council’s proposal to close the Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Control Centre and subcontract it to the Surrey Fire service may have a strong resonance.
They’re concerned that if people without local Island knowledge are taking the distressed 999 phone calls, the potential for the fire tender taking longer to arrive is increased.
These concerns have been publicly dismissed by the council and councillors and it’s already been voted through by the IWC Cabinet and the Full Council back in September 2010.
Report published today
Today the IW council announced a delegated decision report – the final decision making phase.
We’ve embedded the pertinent documents below for you to have a read through.
We’ve had a quick look through and have found the Fire Control Transfer Business Case Version 1.1 containing the most interesting detail.
We were only able to give it a quick overview, but found things in there that were potentially worrying.
The costs of doing it are hidden
Disturbingly, all detail of the costs – both the Transitional Costs and Ongoing Annual Costs – have been removed from the 1.1 version of the document. The reason given, “Commercially sensitive”.
Happily, the version 1.0 of the document (starting on page 18) isn’t so coy, detailing all of the one-off and annual costs.
Everything must be completed by October 2011
The whole of the process of de-commissioning the Isle of Wight Control Centre, transferring it to Surrey and carrying out the necessary thorough tests have to be complete by October 2011 at the very latest.
This timescale, that appears short, is on the basis that, “An assumption is made that the business case will be approved, and a delegated decision taken by mid-March 2011.” Clearly we’re a month further down the line and the decision hasn’t been made as yet.
Surrey involved in London Olympics
Why by October 2011 at the very latest? Surrey Fire Control is going to be involved with covering the London Olympics 2011 and don’t have the resources to be involved from November 2011 onwards.
Please research and comment
We’re going to be running around like loons covering the Isle of Arts festival this weekend, so don’t have time to go through this is in a lot of detail.
Given how important a strong fire service is to the people of this Island, if you have time and like to dig out facts, please have a read through the documents below and pick out what you think are strong items both in support of subcontracting the Island’s Fire and Rescue Control Centre to Surrey and those against it.
We hope it will make fascinating reading.
(Did you know? – You can view the documents at full-screen simply by clicking on the left-most graphic, to the right of the Scribd word, on the grey bar at the bottom of each document.)
Fire Control Transfer Business Case Version 1.1
Decision Delegated Notice: Transfer Of Fire Control To Surrey Fire And Rescue Service
Equality Impact Assessment Form – Fire Control Move To Surrey
Image: MatthewVenn under CC BY 2.0
