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Sofas to go at fire stations
Thursday 25th March 2010, 2:47PM GMT.
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Sofas and comfortable chairs are to be removed from all West Midland fire stations and replaced with £72,000 of office-style furniture, it was revealed today.
Snooker tables and dart boards are also being removed to make the service seem “professional”.
Firefighters claim they pay for much of the furniture that is now being removed, and branded the replacement a waste of taxpayers’ cash.
They say removing the leisure equipment, which is only used during official breaks, will lower morale.
Crews complete 10 hour day shifts with a 45-minute lunch break if there are no essential jobs and on a night shift they complete 14 hours with a ‘stand-down’ period between 2am and 6am if there are no call outs.
One firefighter at Fallings Park fire station in Wolverhampton said: “I don’t think the public is that concerned about what we do on our designated lunch breaks or stand-down time when we are still available for calls.
“It is definitely having an effect on morale. The use of taxpayers cash is the main thing which is upsetting people.”
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Tony Prosser, said: “In keeping with what would be expected of a modern, professional 21st century fire service, as part of a refurbishment we are removing snooker tables and dart boards.”
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What a load of tosh!!!!!taking away dart boards and pool tables will lower moral…What nutters run the fire service.
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Assistant Chief Fire Officer Tony Prosser goes onto say “We are replacing the Snooker Tables and Dartboards with PS3′s X Boxes and Plasma TVs” which is more in keeping with the 21st century.
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This gives a real insight into the people who are running the fire service. What a bunch of incompetent fools. The number one thing with any employee let alone those with huge stress like the firemen is morale. Once morale is gone, everything is gone. These guys go out and risk their lives to save our lives, the very least that they should expect is a bit of R&R between calls. Someone’s job should be lost over this ludicrous and completely pointless plan. This is a totally unacceptable waste of taxpayers money and horrendous treatment of these brave lads whom I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart for their service and dedication.
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What are the government doing now, for god sake let these fire fighters have a break. They need to unwind. These people do a hard job and see some horrible things so let them unwind in comfortable surrounding ( which they have paid for themselves ) and use the tax payers money to give them a rise or better equipment or more fire fighters. Just stop wasting tax payers money on stupid things. Roll on the election lets vote these stupid idiots out.
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Er, Steve, what part of the Government runs West Mids fire service??? Its a Service run by itself, not the Government.
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Preciseley,
Other brigades are not doing this, just West Mids, others are finding good ways to save money during this difficult spell, our is spending £72,000 on un-required furniture.
A new station in london opened recently and was supplied with a snooker table and settees on behalf of the brigade, perhaps they value their employees.
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What on earth is wrong with firefighters having comfortable funiture to relax in, in between “shouts”. Surley as their job is highly physically demanding, they need and deserve comfortable furniture.
Surely the use of the leisure equipment is also of benefit to the firefighters as this helps to keep them mentally active whilst on duty and therefore keeps concentration levels high.
This is just another mindless attack by the Goverment on our exceptionally hardworking and highly respected emergency services!
Shame on you!
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With the stresses of a job like firefighting, I would have thought that things like dartboards and snooker tables were a welcome distraction during breaks, and in my view, the fire service could not be any more professional, since most people have the utmost respect for the men and women that have the courage and commitment to do this job. More PC again by the sounds of it. Shame.
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Seems a bit petty, whats the point of getting rid of the chairs, sofa’s and snooker tables?
Will the firefighters become more effective after sitting on uncomfortable chairs? Obviously there ‘highest break’ and snooker arms will be affected, but removing them just for the sake seems daft. Everyone knows they play snooker, darts etc, so what? Still call them if your cats up a tree or you want a free alarm fitting wouldnt you??!!
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Anyone want to buy a cheap snooker table and some darts?
Just another example of govt red tape gone mad!……………..
Vote out your Labour Mad Person (oh sorry MP is Member of Parliament isn’t it!)
Oh well when a sleepy fire man drives his tender out of the station and into a car carrying a family, then the prat who made this one up can be done for manslaughter can he/she? UNBELIEVABLE!!!!!!!
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About time! These lazy firemen have been scrounging free time of the service for years.
No other people have sofas to sit down on for hours in the middle of their shift.
These fireman should be out cleaning the streets and washing off graffiti if they’ve got nowt else to do.
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So, Trevor, when your house/flat/cardboard box is on fire, or you or your loved ones are trapped in a car in a RTA, and require the services of these wonderful lads (and lasses), will you be calling the firemen lazy then? I think not! Oh sorry, I forgot, they’ll be out cleaning graffiti, or doing something more worthwhile than you…
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Marie
What codswallop!
They’re always too busy playing snooker with their mates to come out to most emergencies.
Like all the public 999 services they are very over-rated – we could easily lose 50% of the staff – the services would still be as average as ever and we’d have some money to pay off the national debt.
Common sense hurts?
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50% that would mean for the whole west midlands there would be 123 FF on duty thats 14 fire appliances, lets hope your house is not on fire and you have to have a crew travel 35 miles to get to you, go away learn your facts and stop your bitterness.
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This is tongue in cheek right? Sarcasm is a great way of expressing disgust but only to people who get it. Luckily I get it, I laughed. Thanks for the chuckle Trev.
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Trevor I must be one of those lazy FF would you be willing for me to come round and carry out a home fire safety check at 0345hrs?…Thought not get real trevor. Thankfully we do train from 0800 hrs every day till 1200 then carry out prevention activities, fire safety checks from 1200 – 1730 on a day shift, evening from 0600 – 1200 we carry out training 1200 – 0200 I-learning systems 0200 stand down unless emergency calls, this training enables us to be ready to attend any emergency you can think of, have a go at thinking one we aint prepared for I bet you cant think of any.Let us do our job and be prepared to attend incidents when required and if that means from 0200hrs if we sit on a comfy chair for few hours does that matter???didnt think so
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It would seem to me, that you are the type of individual who types a comment to mearly create a reaction. Perhaps anybody responding at all, is the worst thing we could do, as it will quite simply produce further under-educated comments from your ‘sad self’. If however, this list of comments from your tiny mind are based on your actual feelings, I feel sorry for you, as you are an ill-informed and probably lonely individual. If you ever have the abilty to enter a house fire, wearing what we wear, and carrying what we carry, in a temperature twice as hot as a family oven, and feel your body use the same amount of energy in 8 minutes, as a hard working individual does in an 8 hour lifting and carrying factory job, then perhaps you’ll see how monumentally stupid your ‘lazy’ comment is. You’ll also see why a comfy sofa helps to not only physically benefit a Firefighter, but also allows a chance to ‘calm down’ as well, either from the physical stress of heat, carrying dead bodies about, or dealing with families who have just witnessed everyting they own burning to the ground.
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Hope the new furniture reclines !!
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I think the Fire Fighters do a brilliant job, why shouldn’t they have their comfortable seating and their snooker tables.
As for Trevor Lloyd Baker, would you be willing to cut someone out of a car cash or go into a house that’s on fire only to find a burnt body inside ! and please don’t say it their job and they get paid for it as iy still takes more than a wage packet for someone to do that sort of thing… it takes B***s as well !
Maybe Assistant Chief Fire Officer Tony Prosser would like to comment on wasting tax payers money …. they already wasted money because they hadn’t installed a sprinkler system in their training headquarters and that burnt down … now you wouldnt think that would have been “In keeping with what would be expected of a modern, professional 21st century fire service “
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The facts: Firefighter’s have one room on the fire station to be used on their breaks. The FF’s on station pay into a social fund which is used to pay for things to make station life more comfortable. They have paid a lot of money for comfortable chairs or sofa’s for this room. The management has deemed that suddenly this is not acceptable. The furniture has had to be removed from station or it will be put in a skip. They have paid £72,000, of taxpayers money, for office chairs to replace what did not need replacing.
The headline should have been “Fire service Chief Wastes £72,000″. The Express and Star missed the point of the story.
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everyone here seems to be missing the point, the point is that the fire brigade is spending £72000.00 of public money, in a recession on staff room chairs. money which does not need to be spent. most stations already have staff room chairs, chairs that have been paid for by firefighters, maintained by firefighters and replaced by firefighters,(until very recently when this practice was stopped at certain stations, giving the brigade the excuse to replace all station furniture). why ? . we have far too many overpaid managers with very little to do. managers none the less who have all benifited from all these facilities throughout there career. hypocrites
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I wonder what former fire fighter Rob Marris MP makes of this.
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He’s probably Sitting on his sofa….. watching Gord and his Darling playing Snooker and Marking the board in a very important knockout final called the Election,,,,,,, Anyone got any chalk?????
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what on earth is this world coming to the firefighters need some kind of comfort dont they .everyday they risk thier lives saving us and now this happens to them what a waste of taxpayers money
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Unbelieveable. These guys risk their lives for us. Who cares if they sit on comfortable seats or play pool. They deserve to.
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SO THIS IS HOW SOME NUMBER CRUNCHER AS SORTED OUT THE PROBLEM IN OUR FIRE SERVICE. CHAIRS AND SNOOKER TABLE REMOVAL . SORRY BUT THESE LADS DESERVE THE BEST WE CAN OFFER NOT ANOTHER KICK IN THE TEETH.
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i think there are a lot of warped views on what the fire service is about. many people think its a case of sitting around until an emergency call arises. as a firefighter in the west mids, i can 100% tell you this is not the case. when we’re not out on calls, we are training. whether practically training in preperation for the huge range of emergencies we turn out to, or lecture based training, down to personal i-learn self based training. all this in between prevention based activities like home fire saftey checks, site risk surveys and educational school visits. we are available at the drop of a hat when a call comes in. most jobs out there have the benefit of letting you do what you want during a quite often undisturbed lunch break- pop into town, have a pub lunch, nip to the gym etc. it goes without saying, we do not benefit from that, as emergencies wont wait til your lunch is over. for that reason alone, is it wrong for us to have a few “comforts” on station as we spend huge amounts of time there without the option of leaving until your shift has finished, regardless of breaks etc?? i mean, we are talking about sofas and chairs, and a few recreational items to be used in stand down periods (pool table,darts etc). remembering these things were brought by us at no cost to the tax payer. instead we have chairs that realistically are no use for more then 10 mins seating, without your back ceasing up. chairs that cost a fraction of the price from Ikea, yet the brigade “leaders” insist on putting out tenders which increase the cost by three times!! and you guys are paying for it. wheres the logic?
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I agree with ‘Mike’. Also being a Serving Firefighter in the West Mids, I find it hard to believe how a small minded man like Trevor Lloyd Baker can say what he says. Is it because he has had a bad experience with a firefighter in the past? Or is he jealous? The fact of the matter is that, like Mike explained. Whilst not fighting fires, releasing people from lifts, extricating injured casualties from car crashes, attending false alarms, Chemical Incidents, Special Service calls, grass fires, getting cats down from trees, making inspection calls, fitting smoke alarms, giving fire safety advice, doing site risk indentifications, site risk surveys, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, 6 monthly and yearly check;s, trainings, studying, cleaning and maintaining equipment. Is it so bad to ask that we have some comfortable chairs to sit on? Like stated many times that we paid for ourselves. Is this so bad? Also the chair’s which have now been supplied at a cost to the public at £72,000, are that long based, that anyone shorter than 6ft 2 cannot touch the floor. This is unhealthy surely! Also from the moment we start work, we may have a call, which could last a number of hours, then before even returning to the fire station, we could get another call. It is not unusual for us to have complete days without a proper lunch break. So between these times we must grab ‘Quality’ rest so that we can be prepared for whatever we are needed for. Please also remember that we are the ONLY emergency service that when you call, you will have us knocking on your door within minutes. And we do not grade our calls at present. Unlike the Police or the Ambulance service where they will grade your call and may not attend within the first 24 hours!! But guess what???? We do!!!
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