Last Minute to Save Our London Fire Stations … Please share, tweet, forward and RESPOND
SOS London Mums! SOS!!
Your children’s lives will be endangered. Your insurance premiums will increase. London will lose over 520 first responders for lockouts, stuck in lifts and large incidents. You must act. They are going to close your London fire station.
This is long, it is convoluted, and it is made to dissuade you from giving an opinion. Have a glass of wine, tea, hot chocolate tonight and respond to the consultation. Do not let your services get taken from you and your children. Click here, you can register and skip to the end a leave a comment to reduce it to 5 minutes. I filled out as much of it as I could and it took 15.
The City of Westminster’s poorly publicised consultation held on 11th June in the Abbey Centre gave a much better and far more concerning picture of what the consultation means to Londoners.
In brief, the closure of the fire stations will, without challenge, result in a decrease in the most important services. If you are stuck in a lift you will have to rely on a private firm to release you. If you lock your toddler in your flat, call a locksmith and hope they come soon. Your insurance premiums will increase as response times will increase. It has been advised at the meeting that your children’s schools should install sprinkler systems (neither of my children’s schools do). And next time hundreds of people need to be removed from the Underground, there will be 520 fewer people to respond. Should there be an accident where medics are not able to remove people from the car wreck, there are fewer engines and fire fighters to help.
Thank you for this, London Baby. SO important that we participate. It is not standard practice to require schools to fit sprinklers (whether it should be is a different discussion). Where is the money for fitting sprinklers going to come from? Firefighters do not “just” respond to fires as you rightly point out. They also respond in Road Traffic Accidents (there has been an increase in these), floods and terror attacks. The reason fires are DOWN is because there has been an INCREASE (up by 75% in some areas) in free domestic fire risk assessments and fitting fire alarms. Many fire fighters also do voluntary work. And no, I am not married to a firefighter!
I dont feel very assured knowing that the Soho fire station will cover all of Westminster in the event of a massive event … Cheers Bojo!! Don’t sell all the family silver at once.