A message to the people of Abertillery, Blaina, Nantyglo, Brynmawr and Ebbw Vale

Do not let them take away our engine and paint our name out of existence

Ok, there are a few other places I should have added to that title but you are only allowed so many characters and you will get the point from the article that is to follow.

There is a demonstration tomorrow outside Ebbw Vale Civic Centre organised by the people of Blaina, who are going to be protesting about the planned closure of one of the most efficient (if not the most efficient) fire stations in Blaenau Gwent.

Now this attempt by the South Wales Fire Service is being pushed by Chief Fire Officer Huw Jakeway, who I believe that I have information on, that leads me to question his commitment to the future of the Fire Service in Wales and I am prepared to go to court over this if needed.

Yes it is good to make savings but you make those savings at the back end and not the front end.

The truth is, is that Blaenau Gwent Fire Service is badly under funded and woefully short of staff and so I believe that the Battle for Blaina should be expanded to include all the fire stations in Blaenau Gwent and a campaign be started to get more resources, money, equipment and sites for an expanded Fire and Rescue Service.  If Senior Fire Officers are against that, then they are not for the people they are supposed to serve.

The Fire Service talks about the need for savings and forgets that some of us have memories greater than that of goldfish and remember stories about how Senior Fire Officers like to swan around in top of the range cars - no doubt on the way to play golf with Huw Jakeway.

Senior Fire Officers like Huw Jakeway,  have the hypocrisy to talk about making savings of a few thousand of pounds a week by robbing one of the poorest areas of Wales of their Fire Engine, that they have paid for with the lives of two of their crew, whilst elsewhere in the Fire Service, descisions by colleagues as stupid as him, reveals that £342 million of rate and taxpayers money has been wasted on rents for fire brigade sites which will stand empty. 

Several of the empty properties are owned by anonymous trusts and companies, two of which are based in the tax haven of Jersey. The rent commitments mean the taxpayer is now paying £1.4m each month on the empty buildings at a time when the government is implementing swingeing cuts.

It costs £250,000 a year to fund Blaina Firestation.  The wasted £1.4 million per month would fund sixtyfour Fire Stations the size of Blaina every year.

This stinks of corruption and cronyism and deserves further investigation.  But the point is made.

How dare people like Huw Jakeway talk about efficiency and savings when he and his fellow officers could not save a cat up a tree let alone South Wales Fires Service.  I suggest to Huw that he goes and talks to his colleagues in Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service and borrow one of their ridiculous sticks that they wasted money on and find somewhere to shove it.

One has to wonder, does Huw share some common purpose with people who want to see our Fire Services destroyed?

So Blaina's fight is Brynmawr's fight, Ebbw Vale's fight, Abertillery's fight, in fact Blaina's fight is for all of Blaenau Gwent and so therefore all the people of Blaenau Gwent should if possible attend the protest on Monday.

We must not try to fight these people as individual areas, we must take them on as a united force and I really hope that Welsh Politicians support the people they are elected to represent.