Locals have until March to have their say on controversial plans to change the way fire stations are run across Warwickshire.

The county council is asking for residents to share their view on the 'Resourcing to Risk' scheme, which could see shift patterns change for firefighters at stations across the region.

Warwickshire Fire and Rescue Service (WFRS) has failed to meet its target response time to incidents for the past four years, and says this new proposal aims to address that.

The scheme hopes to increase the number of firefighters and fire engines available between 8am and 10pm - the time period where there are the most number of incidents - rather than having extra resources at night when there is less demand. 

Warwickshire County Council's cabinet approved the start of the public consultation last month.

Meanwhile members at Kenilworth Town Council have already voiced their concerns about the proposals.

The service is currently supplemented by on-call firefighters - local people who live within five minutes of their fire station and come forward to launch a response when required. 

But WFRS says on-call availability has fallen from 90 per cent to 35 per cent since 2019 and the 12 fire appliances which are crewed by on-call firefighters are, on average, only available one-third of the time.

The council says the plans are not about cutting costs, adding: "Although it’s not our intention, we can’t promise there won’t be any redundancies."

If approved, the plans would see Kenilworth Fire Station's on-call team replaced with a 'surge team'.

The council says the surge teams "will provide an ability to recall firefighters within specified time periods to make available additional fire appliances to meet this surge in activity.

"They can also provide resilience during times of high demand or spate conditions, such as multiple incidents occurring simultaneously."

This would leave Warwick district with two 'wholetime' fire appliance at Leamington Fire Station

See the full consultation here.