London Fire Brigade must avoid more cuts if it is to continue keeping Londoners safe, an independent review warned today.
The review, conducted by former City Hall chief Anthony Mayer, concluded the service had dealt well with reductions to frontline services to make savings of £100 million but would struggle to cope with civil contingencies such as flooding, health emergencies or terror attacks if there were further cuts.
Tories said the report, commissioned by Sadiq Khan, exonerated Boris Johnson, who faced controversy when he axed 10 fire stations, 27 fire appliances and more than 500 firefighter posts during his time as Mayor.
The service had continued to hit its target of the first appliance arriving at an incident within an average of six minutes. However, the number of individual wards not meeting average attendance time targets had risen.
With the fire brigade’s current budget due to fall by a further £23.5 million over the next three years, Mr Mayer warned additional cuts could cause problems.
He said: “London Fire Brigade continues to do an excellent job at keeping Londoners safe. In the face of funding reductions, it has implemented sensible adaptations. Nevertheless, it is important that the budget gap is not allowed to widen further.”
He recommended ring-fencing funds for potential major incidents and moving second fire engines to different stations to cut response times.
Tory London Assembly Member Gareth Bacon said: “This review has vindicated the savings made to London’s highly valued fire service.
“The findings prove how baseless the misdirected and noisy opposition from the Labour members of the Fire Authority was.”
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