THE FIREFIGHTERS’ union claims a five-minute “delay” in getting to a fatal York blaze has highlighted the risks of planned reductions in city-centre fire cover.

The Press can reveal that a fire engine from Acomb was the first to reach the blaze in Skeldergate on December 1, when a 91-year-old man is believed to have died from smoke inhalation. It took about seven minutes to get to the scene.

Neither of the two appliances based across the River Ouse at the Clifford Street fire station, about two minutes from the scene, was there. One engine was out at Malton tackling flooding problems while the other was attending a community fire safety event at Monks Cross shopping centre.

Steve Howley, of the Fire Brigades Union, said the incident highlighted concerns previously expressed both by union and York’s conservationists about plans to transfer a city-centre fire engine to Huntington Fire Station when the Clifford Street station is replaced by a new one in Kent Street.

Objectors have claimed this will lead to increased delays getting to fires in the city centre, where there are hundreds of vulnerable historic buildings. Mr Howley said: “It will lead to an increase in the number of times there is a delay in getting to a city-centre fire, when pumps have to travel in from either Acomb of Huntington.

“I am concerned about the pressure this will put on firefighters. I am also concerned that management’s insistence on a PR exercise at Monks Cross took precedence over appropriate city-centre fire cover.”

He said there should now be a review of the decision to remove one of the city centre’s pumps.

Fire service spokesman Peter Hudson rejected the claims and said there was no need for a review. He said the Acomb engine had got to the blaze well within target times and the additional five minutes made no difference to the outcome.

Nor would the service ever expect its fire engines just to stay in the station, he said, claiming it was normal practice for them to be out on jobs, training exercises or community safety events.

He said the Monks Cross event was not a PR exercise but an attempt to deter Christmas drink- driving, which would help to save lives.

He pointed out that more people died in road accidents each year than in fires.