PLANS to make £4m cuts to Hampshire’s fire service – with a 20-strong crew reduced to 14 at Petersfield, and the loss of one of its two larger appliances – have been approved.

The revised proposal, with cuts scaled down from the original £5m by 2020 to £4.1m after a public consultation, have been given the go-ahead by the county’s fire authority.

Crew manager at Petersfield fire station Chris Jenner said:?“I am yet to be convinced on how it is going to work. We have got to make it work, and the fire service is very good at working with what we’ve got, but there are worries. I hope I’m wrong.”

One of the concerns is the unknown quality of a smaller replacement vehicle destined for Petersfield. There was no indication yet when this would arrive.

As well as the cuts at the Petersfield station, saving £38,000, Liphook will see its crew of retained firefighters cuts from 12 to eight, with a saving of £24,000.

A crew of 15 on-call will be reduced to 13 with a smaller vehicle at Bordon, saving £10,000, and Grayshott’s team of 12 retained firefighters will be cut to eight on call with a smaller appliance, which the authority estimates would save £28,000 a year. Grayshott would have one on-call full time equivilent post to crew a ‘co-responder’ vehicle shared with Liphook.

Overall, the number of full-sized fire engines in Hampshire will still be reduced from 76 to 25, with smaller ‘intermediate’ and ‘first response’ vehicles replacing them.

The original plans would have seen 86 full time fire-fighters and 225 retained officers lose their jobs. But now only 60 full time and 152 retained posts could be lost.

The proposals, to tackle Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service’s £12m deficit, were drawn up following a comprehensive review.