SAVE OUR STATION

OPPONENTS of plans to shut Henley fire station say new data undermines the “flawed” case for its closure.

An Oxfordshire County Council review of emergency responses across the county recommended the on-call station in West Street should be earmarked for closure due to “persistent low fire engine availability”.

But town, district and county councillor Stefan Gawrysiak says new figures provided by the station show the council’s figures do not give the full picture.

While the fire station is in Oxfordshire, it covers a wider area including Buckinghamshire and Berkshire.

However, the county council’s review only includes data for Oxfordshire.

It says the Henley crew attended 77 incidents per year from July 2022 to March 2024.

But, according to call logs from the station, when incidents in the neighbouring counties are included, this figure rises to
101 incidents.

Cllr Gawrysiak said: “I believe this consultation is flawed because the data is wrong and there is also missing data on new deployment times if Henley fire station goes.”

Oxfordshire has a responsibility to provide fire cover for Henley and the surrounding rural area. The only way of doing that is to have a fire station.

“If the station closed and there is a house fire or a road traffic incident in Henley or the surrounding area, it will take a fire crew
31 minutes to get from Wallingford and 22 minutes to get from Caversham, compared with around
10 minutes from Henley.”

The review suggests closing the station would increase the average first fire engine response time by two seconds and second fire engine response time by one second, across Oxfordshire.

On average, its response time would be 11 minutes and 21 seconds in the day and 15 minutes and
43 seconds during the night.

However, response times by Caversham fire station to three incidents in the Henley area earlier this month November were 13, 19 and 22 minutes.

The county council is proposing a new £8.3m fire station be built in Crowmarsh Gifford. It is expected to only be manned during the day with night cover provided by an on-call crew from Wallingford.

Paul Robinson, an on-call firefighter at Henley fire station, criticised the closure plan at a town and community meeting at the town hall on Tuesday night.

He said: “One of the unseen things we do is ‘safe and well’ visits to older citizens to check their fire alarms. Losing our fire station means crews will come from Wallingford and Watlington, who have even bigger ground to cover to do ‘safe and wells’.

“Just to show the impact of a lack of engines at night, last Wednesday the Henley crew was sent to Maidenhead because Berkshire had a 10-engine fire. On the way to cover Maidenhead, we were diverted to the other side of Reading because they had a 10-engine fire as well.

“The truck didn’t come back into Henley until 3am and an engine from North Oxford had to come down to cover us.”

Councillor Kellie Hinton described the consultation as “manipulation at best and corruption at worst”.

She said: “I think it’s highly suspicious this comes when we’re looking at serious reorganisation of local government. This makes absolutely no sense to come about now. The fact the data within it is incorrect, possibly hidden, fudged or displayed to make you think a certain way, is disgusting.”

She added: “We’re not just a town in South Oxfordshire, we’re Henley and we have hundreds of people that pass through this town. We have way more cars it seems than anyone else, which means a lot more accidents. To think one of our three vital services is at risk is insane to me.”

Mayor Tom Buckley said the idea of building a new station
10 miles away at Crowmarsh Gifford was “scandalous”.

He said: “Henley is right on the border of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. Moving it to Crowmarsh Gifford and expecting Berkshire to then pick up what Henley had, is completely against anything that makes sense.

“We’re in the middle of a consultation on moving to unitary councils. We’re being penalised while Oxfordshire tries to rejig things before these strategic changes, while trying to claim at the same time spending almost £10m to move a fire station eight miles away is good, it’s scandalous.”

A motion against the closure plan proposed by Cllr Gawrysiak was passed by the committee. It said: “Henley Town Council strongly deplores the potential closure of Henley fire station. If it closes, then lives will be put at risk because the deployment times to house fires and road traffic accidents will increase from seven minutes to more than 20.

“We also should not be relying on Caversham to cover Oxfordshire. Oxfordshire fire service should look after Oxfordshire residents. Currently for a house fire in Henley, deployment time is
10 minutes. After closure, Crowmarsh would be 31 minutes, then from Caversham 22 minutes.”

The motion called on the county council to publish correct data about deployment times for incidents in Henley before and after the potential closure and asked for the chief fire officer to attend a meeting at Henley Town Council to explain the proposals.

A spokesman for the county council said it is preparing a response to Cllr Stefan Gawrysiak, which involves some work around providing the data he has requested, but added: “The data and information we have provided is accurate and we will demonstrate this.”