Big Win for Blaina at Home

Just some of the A-Team

Despite being up against a side that had massive amounts of money to spend and supported by dozens of highly paid sales players, plucky Blaina Fire and Rescue Service fought off the threat of closure to our fire station that was made by the bully boys of the South Wales Fire Service, captained by Chief Fire Officer, Huw Jakeway.

News just in, is that the meeting of the Fire Authority scheduled for December 16th, where the 24 members and their leader Tudor Davies would have had to accept the flawed proposal put forward by the Fire Service and close down Blaenau Gwent's most reliable Fire Station, or rightly reject it and consign it to the nearest bin, has been cancelled, or rather put back until March of 2014.

Now this is good news - in the short to medium term - but it is not GREAT news. 

The safety of the people of Blaina and Nantyglo, plus the jobs of our boys should now be secure until at least April 2015, given that the Fire Service Budget is sorted out in February of 2014.

However, I would not put anything past the top brass of the Fire Service, who have spent large sums of taxpayers money training themselves on how to deal with an "awkward" public, who for some strange reason, object to the closure/privatisation of a service, their lives may well depend on.  

In the first instance, Huw Jakeway must make a public statement sooner rather than later, giving the reasons as to:

• Why the Fire Authority meeting was cancelled.
• Whether "the proposal" has been withdrawn or just being held back.
• If withdrawn, will a new proposal be submitted.
• If there is a new/amended proposal, would the people of Blaina and Nantyglo have to go through the entire process of completing surveys again.

So as you can see, there are a lot of questions that need answering and they need answering soon. So please get to it Huw.

Now for my take on the situation.

You will hear talk of how amazed and impressed the leadership of the Fire Service were at the support that Blaina was able to raise in such a short time.

You will hear how they did not understand the depth of feeling felt by the people of Blaina and Nantyglo.

Those kind of comments from the Fire Service are totally irrelevant.  They still want Our Station Closed.

Truth is, our cause was just and our logic impeccable - but it is a sad state of affairs when something as serious as peoples lives depends on whether you can get enough of those people to make their voices heard - which Blaina did and will do so even louder in the future.

On this occasion, the Fire Service made A LOT of mistakes - they will have learnt from this experience and I suspect be back for a replay some time down the road.

Did they really think that a Fire Authority would want to announce that they were going to be responsible for an entire Fire Crew and their support worker losing their jobs just a week before Christmas?  Political suicide for any Councillor who supported that for a start.

They know now that they just cannot shove any rubbish about Blaina at the Fire Authority and expect them to "rubber stamp" their decisions.  Their next proposal (and there will be one) will be a lot more water tight and professionally presented.

So my friends enjoy this victory and enjoy Christmas but remember this. In times of Peace, Prepare for War.

Well done to all involved in the campaign - I hope that Blaina will be an inspiration to other Fire Stations also under threat of closure.

UPDATE 21:48 
Comment posted by Councillor Lisa Winnett on Facebook

SWFRS have stated that the meeting that was due to take place in December to discuss the proposal to close Blaina's Fire Station will not take place in December.

There will be a finance meeting being held regarding next years budget (SWFRS), and it is felt that finance will have to be found for the station for next year (we will have to wait to have this confirmed when the meeting takes place).

This will then mean that Blaina's station will be open until at least the end of March 2015. The meeting to discuss the proposals to close Blaina's Station will now be held in March 2014, as SWFRS could not address all the issues fully that have been raised during the consultation period before December.

The CFO and I had a lengthy discussion today regarding many items, and I will state that I did say that I think an amalgamation might be a way forward, the CFO did also stated that he has taken this on board as I raised this with him last October. BGCBC has offered land for a new station to be built, and as a senior officer in SWFRS Andy Davidson stated to me they have already looked at amalgamation and that was why BGCBC offered land for this to be possible.

I really hope that we are able to keep our 5 stations in BG, but if we can't I would prefer to see two stations amalgamated into 1, for example a new building which would house x2 pumps. Okay we now have a longer wait, but I personally feel this is very positive in the fight to save Blaina's Fire Station.