No. When we compare our proposal to a more realistic situation, where many On-Call fire engines are often not available, the modelling shows no reduction in response times.
The figure of “on average 8 seconds slower” only comes from comparing our proposal to a completely unrealistic situation where all 18 On-Call fire engines are fully crewed all of the time. We know this cannot happen with current staffing levels.
Right now, across the whole Service, we have about one On-Call fire engine during the day and two at night ready to respond. The seven On-Call fire engines included in our proposal were available less than 3% over the last year. This is why the “no On-Call available” model is is much closer to the situation we currently face, and against that model, the proposal does not increase response times.
Two stations, Great Missenden and Stokenchurch, have not had crews for more than five years, so the service in those areas will not change.
Overall, the model shows that, compared to how things work today, the proposal does not create longer waits, and in some areas could mean a fire engine arrives more quickly because the available engines are more reliably crewed.