'Question of maths' to close town fire station Berks boss defends High Court backing to shut down at night

WINDSOR'S fire station could by closed every night by August next year after the crushing failure of a High Court bid to keep it open 24 hours a day.

The Royal Borough's last ditch attempt to block Berkshire Fire Authority plans to close the station between 8pm and 8am came to nothing on Tuesday, when Mr Justice McCoombe rejected claims that the consultation process had been flawed.

But this week Michael Rowley, who is the Fire Brigade Union's Windsor representative, said the battle was not over. He said: "This is just one chapter in a long and open book. The council was right to question the consultation.

"The fire authority did not give people the facts just contrivances. It claimed Windsor firefighters only answer three calls a night.

"But it did not count occasions where the men backed up other stations that needed help, rescued people from lifts, saved animals or provided personal services. They insisted Windsor could be safely covered from Slough. But we have seen the Slough fire engine stuck behind hordes of traffic unable to get through.

"Suppose a car fire blocked the Relief Road?

"Slough is one of the busiest fire stations in the county and will not always be available to attend calls in Windsor if its men are on a job somewhere else."

Berkshire's chief fire officer Iain Cox said the night-time closure at Windsor could begin in the second half of 2010, probably about August. It will release money to improve services at Wokingham, where the population has grown rapidly in recent years.

He said: "I take the responsibility for serving the people of Berkshire and keeping them safe very seriously.

"Our decision was reached over an 18-month period - it was not rushed. It is a question of maths. Our decision will see 14,000 in the Wokingham area reached within 10 minutes, while in Windsor 2,400 will now take longer than that.

"The argument is unassailable that we can serve the people of Berkshire better under our plan. What the council really meant when it said our consultation was flawed was that it did not like our decision and I can respect that.

"I don't expect people to like it but I can ask them to respect our judgment and our commitment

to the safety of the people of Berkshire as a whole."