Firefighters have been out protesting plans to reduce crew sizes.
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00:01Firefighters have been out protesting plans to reduce crew sizes.
00:05Members of the Fire Brigade Union have been outside a Merseyside Fire Authority meeting in Bootle
00:10ahead of a vote on the new policy which could see crews of three respond to non-life risk incidents.
00:15The proposal is part of the Fire Authority's Community Risk Management Plan
00:19but the FBU says a minimum number of five firefighters is needed to respond to incidents safely and professionally.
00:25In response to this, a Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service spokesperson said
00:30Our plan clearly states that we will not send frontline fire engines with three firefighters to life risk incidents.
00:36They continued,
00:38What we are proposing actually protects our life risk response
00:41because it avoids sending a frontline fire engine with four or five firefighters from a neighbouring area
00:47to deal with a low-level incident such as a person locked out or to gain entry for the ambulance service
00:52which would leave two station areas without a frontline fire engine with which to respond should a life risk incident occur.