The Anonymous Widower

The Shutting Of My Local Fire Station

My local fire station at Kingsland is slated to be closed. As can be expected there is now a vigorous campaign to save it.

In London, we’ve had closures of hospitals and A & E units, but here in this part of the capital, there doesn’t seem to have been a backlash against that. I have two large newly-rebuilt hospitals at the Royal London and UCLH, which are just a very simple journey away.  And in the other direction there’s Homerton, of which I have one small good experience. Talking to local people, I’ve never heard a complaint about hospital healthcare in this area.  So the reorganisation may have worked well, despite the partial closure of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, which we used to use, when we lived in the Barbican.

Obviously, there have been a few glitches, but now that GP surgeries are bigger and much more capable, I don’t think that anybody is saying that the changes have not been positive. The planning of the changes obviously used all of the data to get the balance right.

The coverage and number of stations of the London Fire Brigade has probably changed little since I used to live in North London as a child.

These days though, you rarely see a fire engine.  I think I can remember just one or two since I moved here two years ago. I’d love to see the data for how many call-outs there have been in London over the years. I suspect that the pattern has changed dramatically  with more serious fires in high buildings and road accidents. After all high buildings and badly driven high-performance cars have become more common.

So does the London Fire Brigade fit the threats it faces?

I suspect not, as too much it is based on an historic map, when house and generally small fires were a lot more numerous. But now that many more houses and premises have smoke detection systems, the tragic domestic fires have been reduced. We still get them I know, but isn’t it about time, that premises had to have a fire inspection, every few years or so.

The trouble is that the man on the Dalston Omnibus, doesn’t generally believe what politicians tell them. So we get a stand off, which in the end doesn’t change anything.

The full data from all of the London Fire Brigade should be published, to see where the service needs to be changed. some of the decisions prompted by the data, will be unpalatable to some, but what we want is a better fire Service, not one designed on London’s structure of many years ago.

I doubt we’ll see the data made available, as it might point to a different decision.

January 16, 2013 - Posted by AnonW | News, World | Fire, London