Lanarkshire

There are two options for this area spanning North and South Lanarkshire involving four fire stations.

• Cumbernauld
• Hamilton
• Bellshill
• Lesmahagow

• Introduce a new duty system for the second appliance at Cumbernauld, which is currently crewed by wholetime firefighters. This would see that appliance crewed by wholetime firefighters during day shift hours from Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm and crewed by on call firefighters out with these hours. The first wholetime appliance would be unchanged; AND
• Reduce the number of wholetime appliances based at Hamilton from two to one. The second appliance was temporarily withdrawn in September 2023.

Pros

• Matches resources to operational demand in the area during the busiest times whilst ensuring crewing and delivering prevention activity.
• Resolves RAAC issue at Cumbernauld; around £5 million property investment avoided.
• Reduction and redirection of around £1.3 million in annual running costs.
• Transfer of 14 wholetime staff into key roles across training, prevention and operational resilience
• Creates on call employment opportunities within Cumbernauld area.

Cons

• Increase in second appliances response times outside day-shift hours in Cumbernauld area.
• Increase in second appliance response times in Hamilton area.

• Introduce a new duty system for the second appliance at Cumbernauld, which is currently crewed by wholetime firefighters. This would see that appliance crewed by wholetime firefighters during day shift hours from Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm and crewed by on call firefighters out with these hours. The first wholetime appliance would be unchanged; AND
• Introduce a new duty system for the second appliance at Hamilton, which is currently crewed by wholetime firefighters. This would see that appliance crewed by wholetime firefighters during day shift hours from Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm. The first wholetime appliance would be unchanged; AND
• Add an additional wholetime appliance at Bellshill to increase the station to two appliances. The second appliance would be crewed by wholetime firefighters during day shift hours from Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm. The first wholetime appliance would be unchanged; AND
• Introduce a nucleus crew of wholetime firefighters at Lesmahagow. They can be tactically deployed across the area during day-shift hours when on call availability is most challenging. This would supplement the existing one appliance crewed by on call firefighters.

Pros

• Matching resources to operational demand in the area during the busiest times and enhances prevention activities.
• Resolves RAAC issue at Cumbernauld.
• Reduction and redirection of around £503,000 in annual running costs.
• Improvement in on call resilience across South Lanarkshire.
• Creates on call employment opportunities within Cumbernauld area

Cons

• Increase in average response times of second appliances outside of day-shift hours in Cumbernauld and Hamilton areas.

We currently have an imbalance of resources across Lanarkshire where operational demand does not match where our appliances are based.

The second wholetime appliance was temporarily withdrawn from Hamilton in September 2023 and a permanent equivalent solution is now required.

Our fire station at Cumbernauld is also affected by RAAC and requires urgent action. It is not possible to repair the station with its current occupancy of two wholetime fire appliances. It is not currently possible to rebuild Cumbernauld station on an alternative site as no suitable site is available, or to demolish and rebuild the station on its current site.

In Cumbernauld, it’s more complex because of the limited size of the site and building footprint. It’s not feasible to repair the RAAC and maintain two wholetime crewed appliances. It would be operationally disruptive to demolish and rebuild as this would require the creation of a costly temporary station. If the crewing model for one of the appliances was changed to day shift then it would enable remediation work to start without having to move to a temporary site.

Operational demand at Cumbernauld aligns more with other stations across Scotland with less resources based there.

Changing one of the appliances at Cumbernauld to a dayshift system would ensure we continue to match resources to risk and demand, while enabling the repair of the RAAC roof.