PLANS to axe full-time firefighters at a York fire station will significantly increase the time taken by fire engines to get to emergencies, a union leader has claimed.

Steve Howley, North Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union Brigade Secretary, argued that the proposals by North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Zoe Metcalfe to introduce part-time cover at Huntington fire station would put public safety at risk.

He said: "The government’s own modelling shows that your chances of survival falls exponentially as attendance times increase. The people of York deserve better.”

Mr Howley claimed a recent government inspection of North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service was critical that it did not publish a response time standard and stated that the public didn’t know what level of service to expect, and response times had increased since 2010.

“Firefighters are quite frankly shocked that the service are not only still failing to declare a response time standard but proposing to increase response times further in the City of York.

"Year on year, council tax goes up, yet the fire service is cut and response times to emergencies increase. For a service which claims to have a balanced medium-term budget this makes no sense."

He also criticised proposals to cut night time cover from Harrogate and Scarborough fire stations' second fire appliances, which he claimed would lead to an unacceptable delay to life-saving intervention at the most serious incidents.

He claimed that the fire service's own analysis showed that the areas of ‘High’ and ‘Very High’ risk were concentrated in the very areas subject to the proposed cuts.

"A decade of under investment in the Fire and Rescue Service has dovetailed with an increase in response times both locally and nationally."

He urged the public to reject the proposals and strongly oppose all cuts to the emergency response.

"The PFCC needs to fight for the correct funding from government, not simply mask underfunding by slashing services and providing the public of North Yorkshire with a second-rate emergency response service that will put lives at risk.”

The commissioner did not respond yesterday to Mr Howley's comments but said last month that the changes, which were going out to a three-month public consultation before she made a final decision, were based on an extensive risk assessment across North Yorkshire and York, which had identified the likelihood and severity of fires, road traffic collisions, water related incidents, and other emergencies.

She claimed that in York, there was 'currently more emergency response resource than the risk or demand requires,' Huntington fire station was the least used in the area and so she was proposing to change the crewing there from full-time to on-call.

She claimed the change would offer 'appropriate and safe cover for the community.