Axe falls on Spelthorne Fire Service
Axe falls on Spelthorne Fire service
Spelthorne will be left with just one full-time fire engine by next summer following an announcement taken today (14th March 2017) by Cabinet member Richard Walsh (Conservative, Shepperton). The decision comes as a terrible shock to residents campaigning to save two fire engines for the Borough
Nichola Cornes, who has been a leading member of the fire campaign and who put up the petition to save two Fire Engines for Spelthorne emerged from the meeting with Mr Walsh shocked and stunned. She said "I cannot believe it. Mr Walsh is a Councillor in Spelthorne. He should know our problems as well as anyone. His own residents have a new un-tried incinerator right next to them yet he thinks we only need a single fire engine. I cannot get my head around it."
Fellow local campaigner Chris Bateson who was also at the meeting paid tribute to Nichola's work in trying to save our fire service. He recognised the bitter disappointment she felt saying: "Nichola has every right to be angry and frustrated and upset by this appalling decision. We all are. We all feel this will put the lives of Spelthorne residents at risk."
More bad news
Cllr Ian Beardsmore, who attended the meeting to support Nichola and her team, revealed that recently Surrey County Council had granted a new planning permission for the fire station to go ahead on the Fordbridge site. The councillor who singlehandedly stopped development there for a year said "The fact they used delegated powers to avoid a public meeting on the issue speaks volumes."
He continued: "People need to understand this is Conservative failing at every level. Cuts in government funding, a Surrey county council more interested in its rambling property empire than its residents, and crucially Spelthorne Conservatives who sold the land to Surrey - without which none of this could have happened in the first place."
It is expected work on the fire new fire station will begin in April and take about a year at the end of which Spelthorne will lose its one of its two fire engines.