FIRE CHIEFS BLAMED FOR STAFF SHORTAGE

THE wife of a Henley firefighter has said it is wrong to earmark the station for closure when bosses have not done enough to sign up new recruits.

A review is being carried out into response times across the county which proposes shutting the West Street station due to “persistently low fire engine availability”.

An online consultation meeting took place on Wednesday to discuss the proposal by Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service.

About 30 residents, businesses and representatives from the fire service joined the 90-minute discussion.

Rob MacDougall, chief fire officer of Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, began by leading a presentation outlining the proposal to close the station.

He said that, in Oxfordshire over the last 10 years, the number of on-call firefighters has dropped by
36 per cent.

As a result, staffing hours can be as low as
20 per cent, meaning the fire service has to spend more money on overtime for other firefighters to fill the gap.

The consultation shows that staff availability at Henley is nine per cent in the day and 25 per cent at night but records from this year show it ranged from 36 per cent to 57 per cent.

But Rosie Gosby, wife of Andrew Gosby, told the meeting of her concerns about the responsibility of recruiting new firefighters being solely on the crew.

“I don’t understand why it’s on the firefighters of Henley to recruit for their team,” she said. “With your stats, you’re saying that Henley isn’t crewing as much as you would like, and that’s due to really rubbish recruitment.

“All I can see is this consultation being really negative on Henley because they don’t crew enough. I would actually like to see my husband sometimes, who is one of the on-call and whole-time firefighters.”

Mrs Gosby believes there has been no active recruitment in the station. She said: “There is no active fire recruitment for anybody, other than I believe one firefighter on social media and at any event they could possibly do to try to recruit.

“The only recruitment Henley has is a poster on the side of their fire station, which is in a low footfall area, on a road that is mostly used for people going up to the doctors or the pub and by generally elderly people or those under 12 years old who are coming from the primary school.”

Mrs Gosby said the right thing to do would be to crew the station fully instead of closing it.

She said: “Henley has been overlooked, and now you're saying you want to close our station when we have got one of the biggest areas to cover and Caversham Road don’t want the extra pressure of all of Henley’s area.

“People want to volunteer to help out with other situations to release the stress and pressure off of firefighters, on top of them having normal day-to-day jobs. Someone like me could go and do a safe and well within the area.

“If you’re going to do anything, day crew it. Closing it is making everybody massively vulnerable.”

Michael Adcock, assistant chief fire officer at Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, said the station used to have a full-time station support officer to recruit new firefighters before they retired.

He said: “They provide 42 full-time hours and their role is to provide cover for the fire engine availability and to recruit new firefighters. We have had that role for Henley and other stations for many years. We have recruited many new firefighters but the commitment of being an on-call firefighter often means that we do not retain those firefighters. We are actively recruiting for a new support officer for Henley.”

As part of the proposal, the service could open a new £7m station in Crowmarsh.

Mr MacDougall said: “I’m always appreciative of those families that support any of our firefighters because I know how difficult that can be and how committed they can be. If the station is moved to Crowmarsh, we think that will actually reduce the impact on Caversham Road.

“We expect that stations support recruitment. We also have some central functions, which also support this. But we do expect it to be a combined effort between the central employee relations team and stations.”

During the meeting, it was confirmed that cross-border incidents were consciously excluded from the consultation.

Jason Crapper, Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service area manager, said that Henley only went across the border 14 times per year, from April 2019 to March 2024. However, from January to December 2025, the station has been mobilised to 106 incidents, of which 23 were over the Oxfordshire border and into either Buckinghamshire or Berkshire.

Mr MacDougall added: “When we’re looking at the data modelling, we are looking at that response to serious road traffic collisions and house fires and understanding the impact it has on responding to what we see as the most life-threatening incidents.

“We do recognise that Henley will occasionally go over the border to support our colleagues in Berkshire when we have larger incidents and when we need more than one fire engine.

“We’re aware of those numbers and that data but it doesn’t have a significant impact on the modelling that we’re looking at for how we’re going to protect Oxfordshire going forward.”

The consultation ends on January 20. To take part, visit tinyurl.com/m3w48hpc

l What do you think? Write to: Letters, Henley Standard, Caxton House, 1 Station Road, Henley or email letters
@henleystandard.co.uk