Last chance to air views on fire service's future (From Dudley News)

Last chance to air views on fire service's future

11:36am Friday 4th January 2013 in News

PEOPLE across the borough have a last chance to have their say on how the region’s fire service works now and into the future.

West Midlands Fire Service has been seeking views on its Community Safety Strategy for the next three years and the consultation closes today (Friday).

People are urged to complete an online survey which can be found by following the banner links from the homepage of www.wmfs.net Participants will be asked to answer a short series of questions on how WMFS prioritises incidents, how the service is introducing new types of vehicles to attend incidents, fire and road traffic collision prevention and education work, challenging certain requests for WMFS help, and charging for some types of non-emergency call-outs and how the service could do things differently, and whether it offers value for money.

Councillor John Edwards, chairman of the West Midlands Fire and Rescue Authority, said: “West Midlands Fire Service offers an extremely wide range of services, from educating schoolchildren about fire safety through to dealing with large-scale major incidents. We’re keen to hear from as many people as possible as part of our consultation, so we can work the feedback into our planning and budgeting.

“The services we provide currently cost the average council tax band ‘D’ payer £47.83 a year - that’s less than £1 a week - compared to the UK average of £64.12.

“We’re dealing with unprecedented central government funding cuts for our service. As a result, we’re having to make significant changes to how we deliver our services and we want to talk with our communities about the best way to do this."