New Staffordshire fire chief Becci Bryant ready to blaze a trail

Her promotion makes her the UK's first female fire chief to have risen through the ranks. The appointment of Ms Bryant also means that two of Staffordshire's emergency services are being run by women, with Jane Sawyers heading up Staffordshire Police.

This makes Staffordshire the first region in the UK able to boast such a fact, something Ms Bryant has hailed as 'absolutely fantastic'.

"I hope that between us we're really able to show young girls and younger women who are really thinking about what they want to do in terms of their working life that actually you can dream big and you should dream big.

"It takes hard work and effort and you need to put all of that into it but do you know what, there's nothing that's impossible. Except me becoming an astronaut which is what I always wanted to do.

"One of the things that I think is really important is demonstrating the difference that women make because sometimes that difference gets missed."

Back as a university student, Ms Bryant faced sexism the moment she thought about joining the fire service.

She was told she couldn't join Bedfordshire and Luton because they 'don't have women'.

She said: "It's interesting because throughout my career in various different ways there have been a number of firsts.

"One of the first female firefighters in Bedfordshire and Luton, then the first female supervisory manager and then first middle manager.

"I just think the best thing is that I can demonstrate that if you work hard enough it doesn't matter what your gender is or what your background."

Starting out as a trainee firefighter, it wasn't long before Ms Bryant had progressed into a supervisory manager role.

After that she did time at the learning and development school before going back out on watch.

It wasn't until 2005 that Ms Bryant came to Staffordshire and assumed a role in area command.

After time serving in both Newcastle and Tamworth, she was appointed as director of organisational development before becoming deputy chief.

Now, assuming the role of Chief Fire Officer on April 18, Ms Bryant has been able to reflect on what changes she has seen during her two decades plus spent working in the force.

"If I think back to my days at Bedfordshire and Luton when there were three women in the whole town service and I look at where we are as a service now, we've still got a lot of work to do, but we're in a much-improved place.

"We definitely have a larger black and ethnic minority representation but even that is not as great as our community representation is so we have got a lot of work to do.

"The biggest change for me across the fire service in the last 24 year is the shift from being purely response to being predominantly prevention and protection. My goodness we had a lot more emergency calls in those days.

"You can really see how the work around prevention has impacted in terms of the type of incidents that we respond to. Technology has changed immensely as well."

Challenges

She said: "We've got some real challenges ahead but do you know what we have an amazing bunch of staff who work for this organisation and make such an incredible difference every day, it's a privilege to be leading them over the next few years.

"We have the challenge that the economy is still recovering and our budgets from central government are being reduced year on year. But on the flip side, should the county go down the route of devolution that gives a great opportunity to be in control of our finances.

"But we're not there yet and getting to that point takes time so over the next couple of years we have a budget reduction of £4.8 million and that's a challenge"

Ms Bryant is replacing outgoing chief Peter Dartford, whom she described as having made a 'phenomenal' difference.

And she has a clear message to anyone thinks she got the role purely based on gender.

She said: "The fire authority would not not have given me the position if they did not have full confidence in my ability to deliver it.

"It is not a position based on diversity, it's a position based on ability."