A consultation will run from 5 July 2024 until 27 September, with the findings considered at a Fire Authority meeting in December 2024. It can be found at www.esfrs.org/mayfield

About our work

We do more than simply respond to emergencies. We work to prevent emergencies from happening in the first place, and to protect people and property. We aim to do this by managing our resources, our budget and our people as effectively as possible.

The risks faced by local communities are changing, and it has become harder to recruit on-call firefighters who can provide emergency cover at the times they are needed most. We keep the management of community risk including its fire stations and appliances under constant review.

About Mayfield

Mayfield is an On Call Fire Station and it is the lowest activity station within the service.
At on call stations, crews tell the service when they are free or “available” to respond to emergencies.
There needs to be at least four members of a crew available for the fire engine to go out.
In 2023, it was available to respond to emergencies 6% of the time, instead of our target of 50%, and previous attempts at recruitment have not been successful.

Options

The full Options Appraisal was presented to our Fire Authority in June. The options consider several factors including Mayfield’s contribution to overall service risk reduction and resilience, and proposed arrangements for maintaining public safety in the area currently served by Mayfield. Analysis for all the options shows we are still able to meet the Service attendance standards. Option 1 – Maintain Mayfield as a single appliance On-Call fire station and uplift the availability to the Service’s minimum standard of 50% from the current 6% availability. Option 2 – Closure and sale of the fire station, keep the fire appliance and reinvest the revenue staff costs. This would enable the Service to reduce risk more effectively through an improved response capability. Option 3 – Closure and sale of the fire station and appliance, and reinvest staff costs. This would enable a redistribution of staffing resource to reduce risk more effectively through an improved response capability. Option 4 – Closure and sale of the fire station and appliance, and removal of the On-Call section as an additional saving to meet budget shortfall if required.

Our questions

Our survey asks questions including: Given the need to make savings, to what extent do you agree or disagree that ESFRS should consider the feasibility of fire stations that are used least often? To what extent do you agree or disagree that Mayfield Fire Station should be closed to reduce the need for savings elsewhere within the Service? Do you have any alternative solutions to address the challenges that you think should be considered?

How to take part

You can take part online here: www.opinionresearch.co.uk/ESFA To request a paper copy you can: Email: consult@esfrs.org Telephone: 0303 999 1000 (available during office hours) Minicom: 01323 462 003 (available during office hours) Writing to: East Sussex Fire Authority – Mayfield Consultation C/O ESFRS Headquarters Church Lane Lewes BN7 2DZ Events are planned for the local area and online. These will be advertised on our social media channels or you can contact us to be added to a mailing list.

Happy to help.

If you have a question, you may find it’s already been answered in our Q and A section on our website www.esfrs.org/mayfield or you can get in touch with us using the contact details above.