NORTH Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service has announced plans to cut staff numbers, use more retained crews and bring in smaller appliances.

The service will launch a consultation on Monday over proposed changes, saying the number of incidents it attends has fallen and there is a potential “over provision” of resources.

The proposals involve a number of fire stations in the county, following North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue’s review of its cover in the county.

The review, which the service has been working since last year, looked at several years’ worth of information on incidents the service has responded to and the fire crews’ responses to those incidents.

It also involved looking at whether it needed to alter the number and location of fire stations and engines and the way stations and vehicles are crewed. The proposals it has come up with also take into account other information such as future housing developments and potential changes in demographics.

The fire service has said it has experienced a reduction in demand of more than 30 per cent in the last ten years, but a rise in the number of severe weather events such as flooding.

It says the number of emergencies it attends and the level of risk has fallen over the last ten years, meaning in some areas there is potentially an over-provision of resources.

The organisation says it wants to make changes at some fire stations in order to deliver a “most cost efficient service” and better match resources to risk levels.

Changes are proposed at stations in Northallerton, Harrogate, Malton, Ripon, Scarborough and Tadcaster.

One proposal being looked at for Malton, Northallerton or Ripon involves replacing the station’s standard day crewed fire engine with a tactical response vehicle. Tactical response vehicles are smaller vehicles with fewer staff. They would be used to deal with smaller incidents, or to support other appliances during larger incidents.

Other proposals for those three stations involve changing the way they are crewed.

Currently those stations all have full day crews – fire fighters who are in the fire station or local community for nine hours a day. Proposals suggest using a mix of day crew and retained staff to crew a standard fire engine.

The review report concluded that North Yorkshire’s 46 fire engines was about the right number, but that some of them could be replaced by smaller, tactical response vehicles. It also found that 27 needed to be within five minutes reach of incidents and a further ten could be available within 15 minutes.

The Fire Brigade Union in North Yorkshire has previously expressed concern about the use of volunteers and said it was “disturbing” that cuts to frontline services were being proposed ahead of other options such as sharing resources.