Community Risk Management Plan 2025 to 2030 (Draft proposal and consultation)

Message from the Chief Fire Officer and Cabinet Member

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) plays a crucial role in protecting people who live in, work in and visit the county.

We are currently developing our Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) 2025 to 2030. It is our plan to show how we will respond to risk and protect people from harm.

In an ever-changing world of new technology and evolving environmental factors (such as wildfire and flooding), it is important that we assess current and emerging risks and review how we support communities through them. To do this we are constantly exploring how we can do things better by looking at national and local events and outcomes. We utilise our Community Risk Profile (CRP), which is updated annually, to do this.

Through analysing data and receiving feedback, we have identified the key risks we face in Surrey and what people are most concerned about through a community and staff survey carried out last year.

The feedback provided by Surrey residents, communities and our own staff have been extremely helpful and, alongside data on key risks we face in Surrey, have helped us in shaping our draft proposals for change. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the development of our CRMP proposals. Your input is important to us and is extremely helpful in building safe and resilient communities and helping to achieve Surrey County Council's mission: No one left behind.

As we progress with this plan, we invite you to share your thoughts on our draft proposals through our consultation. Your view is important in helping us to improve our service. The consultation outlines proposed changes to how we respond to emergencies, with a continued focus on prevention and protection. Prevention remains a top priority for us, identifying and addressing potential risks to reduce the frequency and seriousness of incidents in Surrey.

We hope you will help us in shaping this five-year plan by taking part in this consultation. We welcome your feedback which will be considered as we continue on this journey.

Dan Quin
Chief Fire Officer

Kevin Deanus
Cabinet Member for Surrey Fire and Rescue
Surrey County Council

Consultation now live

Have your say

Introduction

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service (SFRS) is consulting on proposals to change the way in which we respond to emergencies as part of the Community Risk Management planning for 2025 to 2030.

The aim of the consultation is to understand the views of our communities, businesses and local partner organisations across Surrey; neighbouring fire and rescue services; and our own workforce.

The feedback from this consultation will be considered by SFRS to create a final version of the Community Risk Management Plan (CRMP) for approval by the members of Surrey's Fire and Rescue Authority.

Role and purpose of a CRMP

Under the Fire and Rescue National Framework for England, a CRMP should identify risks facing the community and describe how they will address those risks, preventing emergencies and responding to them when required. In short, it serves as an organisational strategic plan.

A CRMP should have a lifespan of at least three years and be produced in consultation with the community, fire and rescue staff, local partners and Trade Unions.

The document outlines the draft proposals which will inform our plan and we are seeking your views. Once approved by the Fire and Rescue Authority, the CRMP will cover the five years between 2025 and 2030.

Strategic aims

We continuously strive to prevent emergencies from happening and better support vulnerable people, whilst working with partners to do so. Our strategic aims expand upon this, outlining our key priorities to deliver an efficient and effective service for our communities.

Whilst not all necessarily mentioned in this consultation document, the supporting commitments set out our ongoing efforts to continuously improve our service and will be expanded upon once our consultation closes.

Creating our CRMP

We have undertaken a detailed review of various documents, existing plans, and evidence to shape the proposals for our CRMP for 2025 to 2030.

All fire and rescue services in England must create a CRMP as part of Government's Fire and Rescue National Framework for England (2018). The plan should identify existing, new and emerging risks and outline how, as a service, will prevent these risks and respond to fires and other emergencies.

Community Risk Profile (CRP)

We take a data-driven approach in understanding what risks exist and could impact Surrey residents and communities. We collect this information as part of our CRP.

We review our CRP every year to make sure it stays up to date. Within the CRP document you will see a detailed breakdown of the four categories of risks (people, places, premises, products) identified in Surrey and the data to support these. The CRP document can be read in full on the Surrey County Council website.

The CRP includes data on the types of emergencies we respond to and other factors, including understanding where the most vulnerable people are. The CRP includes a mixture of historical incident data and data about other factors that contribute to risk.

We use this information together with national and local statistics to help us identify risks. These include information from the national risk register and the Surrey Local Resilience Forum Community Risk Register.

Fire and Rescue National Framework for England

The national framework requires us to create a plan. The framework sets out the government's priorities and objectives for fire and rescue authorities.

Statement of Assurance

Our Statement of Assurance is a report that we produce which sets out how and where to find information about all aspects of Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and our work with partners.

Surrey Risk Register

The Surrey Risk Register gives information about the hazards that exist in the county and the measures in place to reduce their impact.

National Risk Register

The Government's National Risk Register aims to build an understanding of risks facing the UK.

Community Risk Profile insights

Our CRP showed us broadly similar risks to those identified through our engagement processes.

People

The following factors affect a person's vulnerability to fire and to the risk of injury or death.

• Smokers in their home.
• Is 65 or older.
• Lives alone.
• Has limited mobility, a hearing impairment or is blind or partially sighted.
• Would have difficulty responding to, or escaping from, a fire.
• Has had a fire previously or shows signs of burns or scorching in the home.
• Has learning disabilities.
• Is supported by family, carers and friends.
• Shows signs of neglect or abuse by others.
• Has a mental health condition such as dementia or depression.
• Has drug or alcohol dependencies.
• Doesn't have an alarm in all areas where a fire might start.
• Collects or hoards in their home.
• Shares a home with a child or young person who sets fires.

Smoking

Smoking materials accounted for only 7% of all accidental dwelling fires but were involved in 24% of fire fatalities.

The biggest cause of fires starting in England was cooking appliances, which caused 45% of accidental dwelling fires.

The increasing number of elderly residents and residents with health issues means the number of people likely to have accidental dwelling fires and be more impacted by those fires is growing.

Place

Road traffic collisions (RTCs)

Though numbers of RTCs have reduced in the last few years Surrey has more RTCs than average in the country and younger drivers are over-represented in the casualties. Surrey's roads carry almost double the national average amount of traffic and the county has more cars per mile of road than any other non-metropolitan counties.

Risk of wildfires

Around 15,500 hectares of land have been identified as a wildfire risk. This is equivalent to 155 square kilometres or almost 60 square miles. While numbers of wildfires have remained fairly consistent, their severity has increased in the last five years.

Flooding

Surrey is vulnerable to flooding in many areas, by river water and local flooding of the drainage networks when overwhelmed by intense rainstorms.

Rescues from water

Between 2010 and 2022, SFRS responded to 3,992 water-related incidents and 426 rescues took place. Sadly, this resulted in 50 fatalities across all of those incidents. For context, there were 65 fire deaths in the same period.

Emerging risks

We are aware of new products and technologies that we expect to have a significant impact on the service in future, these include alternative fuels, automated carparks, modern building techniques, battery storage facilities, electricity generation and electric vehicles.

Premises

Data shows us the location of non-domestic premises that are most likely to have a fire, or where the consequences of a fire will be most serious or require special firefighting strategies. We have fire stations near to these premises. Having detailed information about the location and layout of particular buildings, such as heritage buildings, helps us plan to mitigate the effects of fire.

Our analysis of historic incidents and data enables us to identify types of premises that might be at an increased risk of fire. We take this into consideration when we are planning our business safety activities aimed at preventing fires in non-domestic premises.

The fact that the proportion of fires in higher-risk premises where we focus our business safety and inspection activity is less than in medium to low-risk premises suggests that our activity is succeeding in reducing the number of fires.

A significant proportion of all incidents to which the service is called to are fire false alarms due to equipment. The actual number of fire false alarms has remained fairly consistent over the last five years, but continues to decline.

Product

Understanding which products have caused fires enables the service to educate and inform residents about their safe use and to get dangerous products withdrawn from sale.

Many products of potential concern will be those with a fuel supply, most often electrical but sometimes gas. Our Fire Investigation team monitors product safety alerts through channels such as:

• Association of Manufacturers of Domestic Appliances
• Electrical Safety First
• Office of Product Safety and Standards
• NFCC Fire Investigation Workplace site
• Fire Investigations
• Trading Standards investigations.

Monitoring emerging technology allows SFRS to adapt by implementing new procedures and/or equipment to deal with incidents.

More information on this can be found in our CRP.

Early engagement to shape our thinking

Alongside the knowledge gained from our CRP, we have worked with Surrey residents, our colleagues and organisations to help us understand what risks people are most concerned about.

In developing our CRMP 2025 to 2030 proposals, we ran a survey for staff and communities. The survey asked them what they thought of our service, their knowledge of our activities and the risks they face locally.

We received 1,114 responses to our survey.

We also held small research groups and worked with community organisations and Trade Union partners.

This provided the following insights into what the public and communities we serve think about risk and priorities for the next CRMP:

• 46% indicated that they were confident or very confident with SFRS ability to deliver prevention work. Confidence in SFRS's prevention was further supported by the social media polls in which 67% of respondents indicated that they were confident in preventing emergencies.
• 47% of respondents indicated that they were confident or very confident with protection.
• 52% of those surveyed indicated that they were confident or very confident with the response work.
• 45% of respondents stated they were most concerned about building fires with some being more specific in relation to high-risk buildings.
• 25% were concerned about Road Traffic Collisions with 16% and 10% concerned about wildfires and flooding.

This information from our Community Survey has helped to inform the draft proposals within this document.

Ensuring you can trust our process

We've involved external organisations to examine our information and confirm that our consultation process is good and thorough.

Nottingham Trent University (NTU)

During the pre-consultation stage we worked with Nottingham Trent University, leaders in the field of public research and who have already led on the National Fire Chiefs Council's (NFCC) National Risk Methods, which helps to meet requirements for developing a CRMP.

NTU reviewed our data and evidence used to develop the strategic aims and proposals for our CRMP.

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service has undertaken a robust process.

We are assured that the process undertaken has not only reflected the requirements of the Community Risk Profile, but also goes further to ensure it fits within the wider strategic objectives of Surrey Fire and Rescue Service, Surrey and partners for Surrey.

Nottingham Trent University

The Consultation Institute (tCI)

We have also worked with tCI, leaders in consultation and best practice, to achieve a Certificate of Consultation Readiness. This offers assurance that we have met certain quality requirements which align with the tCI Consultation Charter and are in a position to proceed to public consultation.

About our service

People

We recognise that people are our greatest asset, and we want to ensure that they are at the heart of what we do as a service. We aim to attract talent through skills-based recruitment whilst ensuring we are also reiterating and selecting against our values and behaviours. Through offering learning, development and career opportunities we aim to retain our talent.

We want to ensure that we support, engage and value our workforce. To achieve this we have created our people strategy which emphasises the value of our people, enabling every member of our workforce to give their best and form strong, inclusive teams providing resilience in changing times.

We are future focused and flexible enough to enable growth, change and innovation whilst promoting our values, behaviours and standards throughout all our people processes and beyond.

We will invest in our people to make sure they have the best learning and development and are motivated, whilst creating a culture that is collaborative, inclusive and diverse. This will support us to maximise our understanding of our communities' needs and represent them in the best way possible.

We want to help our workforce to become more resilient and diverse, develop their skills and maximise their wellbeing at work. We also recognise that the way we lead, manage and behave is fundamental to how people view the service. We see this as an essential prerequisite to demonstrating our commitment to fairness, equality, respect and continuous improvement.

A motivated and healthy workforce is essential. As such, we will continue to prioritise the physical and mental well-being of our personnel, providing support, wellness initiatives, and an understanding work environment.

Prevention

Prevention is made up of several different areas, all designed to improve the health, safety and wellbeing of the people and communities most at risk in Surrey.

Our targeted programmes are aimed at keeping all residents safe but particularly for those who are most vulnerable. They are designed to help adults, children and communities to fulfil their potential, maintain a healthy lifestyle and support a prosperous economy through reducing risk, injury and property damage.

We use an approach that looks at our intelligence and risk, as well as current and new partnerships, to target the most vulnerable and those who are most at risk from emergencies within our community. Our activities will be maximised by using firefighters in addition to specialist staff to work with target groups, whilst also working collaboratively with partner agencies including the police, adult social care, children services and health specialists.

How we support those who need most care and attention

Our firefighters and specialist staff carry out Safe and Well Visits (SAWV) in our residents' homes. This involves giving a range of advice including fire safety, while signposting to our partners for any other needs the resident has. During these visits we supply and fit, where appropriate, smoke alarms, Carbon Monoxide alarms and hard of hearing alarms (vibrating and visual alarms). Working with partners we can also supply equipment such as oil filled radiators and gloves during cold weather or providing safety advice and equipment for survivors of domestic abuse.

We will:

• Use a framework which puts individuals and communities at the centre of all we do.
• Continue to deliver SAWV's in person to those most vulnerable while promoting the use of the web based Safelincs questionnaire to those who are able to help themselves.
• Monitor our data and intelligence including casualty numbers to ensure resources are targeted to reach these most vulnerable groups. We will also share this intelligence with our partners where appropriate.
• Continue to work closely with Surrey Safeguarding Adults Board and Surrey Safeguarding Children's Partnership to ensure all our staff are trained to recognise signs of abuse so that anyone at risk is reported in a safe and timely manner.

Working with children and young people

Our school's education team has worked with 61% of Surrey schools and 8,983 young people to support them in keeping safe. This is further supported by our firefighters delivering education to pre-schools using dedicated materials, hosting visits by youth groups and attending community events.

Our Youth Engagement Scheme (YES) has been running for over a decade and supports young people at risk of exclusion from school, giving them a week of support and directed activities that help them gain confidence and value themselves. In many cases this assists them in staying in school which is a critical step in our aim of ensuring that they fulfil their potential. During this CRMP, our YES will evolve to widen the reach of our services and therefore the number of young people we can help. This includes delivering qualifications as part of the Princes Trust and working with other youth teams to deliver our specialist advice and information.

The Firewise Scheme works with young people who have set fires or are fascinated by fire. This education programme helps them to understand the dangers and impact of their actions.

We will:

• Continue to deliver knowledge and services into all key stages, particularly years two, five and seven while also including pre-school.
• Continue to develop and expand the services offered by the schools education team.
• Utilise an informed approach in all our work with young people.
• Continue to develop all youth opportunities to ensure equality and fairness of access to services so that no young person is left behind.

Road safety

SFRS is part of the Surrey Road Safety Partnership, and we will continue to support the aims of this initiative. As part of that partnership, we are an integral part of the Vision Zero approach to prevent road fatalities and severe injuries.

Our Safe Drive Stay Alive, programme has been very successful since it was launched in 2005 and we are now developing the next steps in conjunction with national partners, researchers and educationalists. We have adopted the DriveFit programme for 2023/24 and will test and incorporate the new programme when it is ready.

Health and wellbeing in the community

We work closely with partners to support the health and wellbeing of the community. Being part of and promoting compassionate communities is important to us. We intend to expand upon this during this CRMP 2025 to 30.

Protecting the environment

Working with a range of partners, we will educate, prevent and respond to environmental issues more effectively. This includes wildfires, environment protection and land management. We also continually strive to be more of an environmentally friendly organisation.

Protection

Our protection priorities are to address the immediate threats whilst proactively working towards preventing fires by developing protection activities across the service.

Our Risk Based Inspection Programme (RBIP) ensures that resources are allocated efficiently to maximise the impact of our protection initiatives. By prioritising areas with the highest risk, we aim to achieve best outcomes. This approach allows us to achieve best outcomes for our communities. We continually adapt through identifying trends and emerging risk.

A cornerstone of our Community Risk Management Plan is a robust protection framework that spans across the entire service. We will continue to equip our personnel with the necessary and correct skills. The protection team use specialist skills to target the highest risk properties highlighted in the RBIP.

Fire safety interactions at lower risk premises will continue through Business Safe and Well Visits (BSAWV) – similar to the community SAWV, but tailored to businesses.

By aligning to SCC's Net Zero commitments (to be carbon neutral by 2050), we are actively working towards carbon reduction across our teams. By incorporating sustainable practices and new ways of working, we strive to minimise our environmental impact.

Response

Our response teams are at the forefront of emergency incidents, where their strategic functions include preparedness, response and community focus. They play a pivotal role in managing and minimising emergencies and safeguarding communities. The operational response teams are currently based over 25 fire stations spread around the county, ensuring that we are at the right place and at the right time for the risks in the community.

Our operational crews work alongside our prevention and protection specialists and have a dual focus in community safety and business safety.

We address potential risks by continually analysing incident data and trends as well as through community outreach initiatives. This strategic insight enables the fire and rescue service to proactively address potential risks and vulnerabilities within the community, ultimately minimising the occurrence and impact of emergencies.

At the core of response responsibilities is the development and maintenance of a state-of-the-art operational equipment and specialist assets. This entails the continuous evaluation and enhancement of firefighting tactics, equipment innovation (e.g.: drone technology, wildfire and flooding equipment), to meet evolving challenges and emerging threats.

Keeping up with the latest developments in firefighting technology and techniques is essential in maintaining a cutting-edge approach to operational response. This is maintained through planning, understanding risk and regular training exercises, to ensure that the team is well-equipped to handle diverse emergency scenarios.

This team are also crucial when we evaluate the effectiveness of our response to emergencies through post-incident reviews, data analysis and feedback mechanisms. Additionally, they also collaborate with other blue light partners, agencies and stakeholders, creating partnerships that strengthen the overall emergency response to Surrey.

Delivering an emergency response

We have 18 wholetime fire stations, seven on-call fire stations and other workplaces (including our Headquarters and training centre in Reigate) around the county.

Each of the fire stations are made up of different crewing types and shift patterns (please see the glossary for more information on this).

Our response model sets out where we've located fire engines and crews and when they're available for emergencies. Our fire stations use different crewing and shift patterns depending on the need of the community, risks they face and the balance of fire and rescue cover across Surrey. However, the way in which we work ensures that the nearest, quickest and most appropriate fire engine will be sent to an emergency.

Our response teams are also a big part of ensuring that we can deliver prevention and protection to our communities, working alongside specialist teams (such as our Fire Investigation Team, Business Fire Safety Team and many more).

The map below shows where our fire stations are situated and their crewing model:

• Banstead: Day crewed
• Camberley: 1 x wholetime and 1 x day crew
• Chertsey: Wholetime
• Chobham: On-call (nights and weekends)
• Cranleigh: On-call 24/7
• Dorking: Wholetime
• Dunsfold: On-call (nights and weekends)
• Egham: Day crewed
• Epsom: Wholetime
• Esher: Wholetime
• Farnham: Wholetime
• Fordbridge: 1 x wholetime, 1 x day crew
• Golalming: Wholetime
• Godstone: Wholetime
• Gomshall: On-call (nights and weekends)
• Guildford: 1 x wholetime, 1 x day crew, 1 x on-call (nights and weekends)
• Haslemere: 1 x day crew, 1 x on-call (nights and weekends)
• Leatherhead: Wholetime
• Lingfield: On-call (nights and weekends)
• Oxted: On-call
• Painshill: Day crewed
• Reigate: Wholetime
• Salfords: Wholetime
• Walton: 1 x day crew, 1 x on-call (nights and weekends)
• Woking: 1 x wholetime, 1 x day crew

Response times

While there are no national 'response targets' for fire and rescue services, we consistently meet or exceed our own targets (which we refer to as the Surrey Standard). Within our most recent inspection by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS), they highlighted that our response times are well within the typical national range.

While there are no national 'response standards' for fire and rescue services, we consistently meet or exceed our own standards. We refer to these as the 'Surrey Standard'. Within our most recent inspection by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), they highlight that our response times are well within the typical national range.

Surrey Fire and Rescue Service Response Standards

• Fire fire engine to critical incidents in less than 10 minutes
• Second fire engine to critical incidents in less than 15 minutes
• First fire engine to other emergencies in less than 16 minutes

Proposals for change

We have detailed each of our proposals, breaking down what activities we plan to undertake within these.

We will use a three-stage approach in order to deliver these proposals. We will monitor the impact of each activity and review when appropriate.

To help explain our proposals, we've used a 'what', 'why' and 'how' approach below.

Proposal 1

Summary: Balance our prevention, protection and response resources to ensure that Surrey is a safe place to live, work and do business.

(1.1) Relocate the current Banstead fire engine and crew to Godstone Fire Station.

What:

There is a daytime (7am to 7pm) fire engine located at Banstead Fire Station. We lease the site where the fire engine is located.

Why:

Our lease for Banstead Fire Station expires in 2025 and we are unable to renew it. There is currently no other appropriate location in Banstead.

How:

We will relocate the crew and fire engine from Banstead Fire Station to Godstone Fire Station. We will make sure that any required changes are made to Godstone Fire Station so that it is appropriate for the additional staff and equipment. We will continue to deliver prevention and protection activities to communities in the Banstead area. We will continue to respond to emergencies based on the nearest and most appropriate fire engine available.

Background information:

Relocating the Banstead fire engine and crew to Godstone Fire Station would continue to provide a balanced service across Surrey. This would enable us to continue to achieve our Surrey Standard response targets. Currently our average response to critical incidents is 7 minutes 23 seconds in the Reigate and Banstead area during the day.

After this change, it would be 8 minutes and 3 seconds during the day. Our data also predicts that our response time to critical incidents in the Tandridge area would change from 8 minutes and 42 seconds to 8 minutes and 32 seconds. Our specialist data software predicts that our response time to critical incidents in the Tandridge area would change from 8 minutes and 42 seconds to 8 minutes and 32 seconds.

(1.2) Review the capability and locations of specialist vehicles and equipment to ensure they match the current and potential risks effectively

What:

There are a number of specialist vehicles and equipment located at different fire stations across the county. Specialist vehicles and equipment can range from wildfire Land Rovers, boats and much more.

Why:

Most incidents we attend are dealt with using traditional fire engines. However, some incidents need specialist vehicles or equipment (such as wildfires and flooding). We want to ensure that our specialist equipment is located appropriately to respond to current and emerging risks. It will also allow us to consider if we need to invest in new technology.

How:

Look at previous incidents we've attended, risks currently in Surrey and risks we can see coming so that we can understand what we need. Use this information to inform where to locate specialist equipment, whether we need to relocate it permanently or at different times of the year, and what new equipment we might need.

Background information:

Specialist vehicles and equipment are used during complex and seasonal incidents such as water rescues, flooding and wildfires.

(1.3) Review current resources at Camberley Fire Station and consider relocation options within the boroughs of Spelthorne and Elmbridge.

What:

There is a 24/7 fire engine and a daytime (7am to 7pm) fire engine located at Camberley Fire Station. There are four fire stations within Spelthorne and Elmbridge, however the three most likely to be considered for this relocation (based on our data and intelligence) are: Walton (one daytime fire engine and on-call evening and weekends), Painshill (one daytime fire engine) and Fordbridge (one 24/7 fire engine and one daytime fire engine).

Why:

Our data has identified that our resources do not match the level of risk in all of these areas for the majority of the year. The exception being in Camberley during periods of the summer wildfire season, when there is a requirement for additional resource (see proposal 2.1).

This relocation would provide an opportunity to enhance the resources and reflect the risk and demand within Spelthorne and Elmbridge.

How:

We will maintain the 24/7 fire engine at Camberley.

We will remove the daytime fire engine from Camberley Fire Station and relocate the staff. This would enable us to provide additional nighttime cover in either Elmbridge or Spelthorne.

We will work with staff to develop a fair and transparent process for relocating.

We will provide additional support in Camberley to respond to risk during the summer wildfire season.

Background information:

Our response data from 2018 to 2023, shows that the incident demand at Camberley is similar to that of fire stations with one 24/7 fire engine.

Our current response model matches this demand for 365 days of the year, so this means that we are over-resourced outside of this period in Camberley.

In the areas of Spelthorne and Elmbridge some risks are greater than others, this includes:

• domestic fires, data of which can be found on page 15 of our CRP,
• flooding, data regarding this can be found on pages 28 and 29 of our CRP and,
• road traffic collisions, data on this can be found on pages 18 to 20 of our CRP.

Proposal 2

Summary: Ensure we have the right resources in the right place and at the right time by better understanding risks that face our communities.

(2.1) Develop a response model which responds to changing risk and seasonal demand (such as heightened periods when we see incidents as a result of summer or winter-specific emergencies).

What:

Our current response model operates in the same way throughout the year (see 'Our current response model' on page above), with no changes during different seasons.

Why:

Our data shows us that risk and incident demand can change throughout the year. This is due to increased wildfire emergencies in the summer seasons and increased risk of flooding during the winter. We also want to ensure that staff wellbeing is considered.

How:

We will provide additional support to meet increased seasonal risk.

This would be in addition to, not instead of our usual response model.

Background information:

The incident data shown on our CRP shows a seasonal increase in demand from July to September throughout the county.

Surrey has approximately 64,000 households at risk of river or lake flooding and 15,500 hectares of land at risk of wildfire. (See CRP, page 28 for flooding and page 21 for wildfires).

Wildfires and flooding occur more frequently in the north-west of the county and both are a result of weather conditions.

Our data shows that wildfires, flooding and water rescue numbers are increasing. (See CRP page 24 wildfire incidents, page 29 flooding incidents and page 30 water rescues.) This can result in a lot of staff needing to be at these incidents over a long period of time.

(2.2) Adapt our on-call weekend plan to better respond to risk.

What:

Our current response model has a total of 10 on-call fire engines:

• Chobham Fire Station available nights and weekends
• Cranleigh Fire Station available 24/7
• Dunsfold Fire Station nights and weekends
• Godalming Fire Station available 24/7
• Gomshall Fire Station available nights and weekends
• Guildford on-call fire engine available nights and weekends
• Haslemere on-call fire engine available nights.
• Lingfield Fire Station available nights and weekends
• Oxted Fire Station available 24/7
• Walton on-call fire engine available nights.

Haslemere and Walton also provide additional support during weekend daytime hours for specialist vehicles.

Why:

The risk and incident demand of incidents for our service does not change per day of the week. But we currently have a plan that requests five more fire engines can be made available at the weekend daytime.

The additional five engines are not required to meet our Surrey Standard response time.

The five on-call fire engines set out in our current plan are not usually available in the weekend daytime.

How:

The following on-call fire engines will no longer be required at the weekend daytime:

• Chobham*,
• Dunsfold,
• Gomshall,
• Guildford and,
• Lingfield.

Haslemere and Walton on-call crews will also not be available at weekends.

Nighttime availability would remain unchanged. The staff who are usually on-call at weekends, would then be available to be on-call during the night instead.

*We will review Chobham due to proposals 1.2 and 1.3.

1.2 so that we can ensure that the specialist vehicles nearby are appropriate.

1.3 because it depends on where the fire engine from Camberley is moved to, ensuring appropriate fire and rescue cover county-wide.

Background information:

Our data shows that during 2022 to 23, when you combine the availability across the five named on-call fire engines and average it out they have been made available 12% of weekends from April 2022 to March 2023. (This means that they often aren't available to respond to emergencies during the weekend.)

Due to on-call firefighters needing to get to the fire station to pick up the fire engine, there is an extra delay, therefore this proposal will have minimal impact on our initial response to incidents in the surrounding areas.

On-call fire engines rely on on-call firefighters giving up their time to be available to respond to emergencies.

Although there is a slight increase, the graph below shows no significant variation in incident numbers between different days of the week. This data is from our CRP, showing all incidents (during 2018 to 2023), and the number of all emergencies by day of the week. This is showing that there is minimal additional risk at the weekend periods when we have extra availability and capacity which is not necessarily needed. This will be redirected to provide better cover during the nighttime periods.

We commit to having a minimum of 20 fire engines available during the day and 16 available during the night. Note: Our targeted minimum fire engine availability as mentioned above, will not change.

(2.3) Adapt existing prevention, protection and response arrangements in Haslemere to ensure the most appropriate resources.

What:

At Haslemere, we currently have one daytime crew and fire engine.

We also have one on-call crew available nights and weekends.

Why:

The data reflected in our CRP indicates that the area covered by our Haslemere Fire Station is an area of low risk.

This area represents low levels of incidents for fires and road traffic collisions. Water emergencies and wildfires are also unlikely.

How:

We are not proposing to close Haslemere Fire Station and will maintain the current 24/7 availability.

We would explore other options to provide daytime availability, in a different way from how we do it currently. This includes using existing daytime staff to support the crewing at Haslemere, additional on-call staff and part-time contracts.

Background information:

Over the last five years, data shows us that Haslemere's daytime incidents average at around 121 per year. This is much lower than the number of incidents at any of our other wholetime stations.

Proposal 3

Summary: Identify and develop more opportunities to keep our communities safe through prevention, protection and partnership activities.

(3.1) Working with our health partners to respond to those who are most vulnerable in Surrey.

What:

We have a number of programmes that we work with health partners on. These include safety recommendations, work with care partners in the community and support with homelessness and other vulnerable groups. We also work closely with other emergency partners at incidents. This could include initial first aid and CPR if needed.

Why:

We have a responsibility to keep our communities safe through prevention, protection and response activities.

We know that working with partners who work with vulnerable people, is key to keeping people safe.

Nationally, the fire and rescue industry is being asked to consider more partnership working with health partners, regarding public safety.

How:

The options we develop will not impact our ability or availability to respond to fire and rescue emergencies.

We will expand how we work with partners to maximise prevention and protection activity. This may include supporting health partners with the discharging of vulnerable patients from hospital to ensure their homes are safe for their return.

Subject to local and national discussions, we will consider options to support South East Coast Ambulance Service. This could include responding to medical emergencies and/or non-emergencies, such as elderly falls.

Our People Impact Assessment

An initial People Impact Assessment (PIA) has been created for the proposals mentioned within this document. The PIA ensures that we understand whether the proposals present barriers or disadvantage to any protected groups and it will continue to be updated throughout this consultation.

If impacts are identified we will take action to help to lessen that impact. The importance of the PIA is that it is honest and transparent, so that when decisions are made about any changes decision makers understand the impact. Decision makers can still go ahead with changes, but we must have mitigations in place.

Our PIA has been designed to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and can be viewed by visiting the Surrey Says website

The PIA will be updated with feedback received during this consultation and final PIA will be published alongside the final CRMP document for SCC to utilise in any decision making.

Next step: have your say

This consultation is running from 7 May 2024 to midnight on 31 July 2024, so please provide your response during this period.

Following the closure of this consultation, a report will be prepared analysing the feedback received. The feedback report will be published on the consultation website, and the findings considered and used to prepare a final draft of the CRMP.

The final CRMP will be presented to members of SCC to approve for the period 2025 to 2030, and subject to approval, the CRMP will then take effect from April 2025.

Thank you for taking the time to read this document setting out how we would like to keep people safe in 2025 to 2030.

You can have your say on the above proposals by completing our survey. It contains seven questions with some accompanying questions about you, and is available by visiting the Surrey Says website.

Community Risk Management Plan 2025 to 2030 Timeline

(subject to minor changes)

Glossary

Here are some frequent terms from throughout this document that could help explain what we mean.

Consultation: a formal survey, whereby we need to hear views from our audience.

Proposals: this is what we are suggesting based on the intelligence we have gathered and what our communities have said to us.

Incident: this is when we are at an emergency or situation that requires our fire and rescue service support.

Resources: this is what we can send to respond to an incident – such as fire engines, equipment, firefighters etc.

Response: This is a term used when we talk about responding to incidents. EG: "Our response teams are ready".

Prevention: Stopping incidents from happening in the first place. We also have specialist teams who manage these programmes.

Protection: This term is used regarding our business safety work. EG: "Our protection team is visiting the building today".

Crew: a team of firefighters.

Response model: this is our plan as to how and when we will place people, fire vehicles and equipment to meet risk and incident demand.

Specialist vehicle: this is our vehicles that aren't the normal fire engines. They tend to be used at wildfires and flooding – such as a boat or a cars that travel better on rough/bumpy surfaces.

Cabinet Member: This is an elected councillor who leads an area of the councils work. For instance, our councillor oversees Surrey Fire and Rescue Service and community protection.

On-call: this relates to a type of employment contract. They would be doing their usual daily activities (such as at work or home) and their pager will alert them to an incident when and if needed. They would then go to the fire station to meet the rest of their crew and collect the fire engine. They may have other primary employment outside the fire and rescue service. They also come in one evening per week for training.

Wholetime: this is another type of employment contract. Wholetime firefighters come to a fire station to complete their shifts. When they are not responding to emergencies, they are completing other tasks such as prevention and protection work, training and more.

National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC): the professional voice of the UK fire and rescue service (FRS). NFCC drives improvement and development throughout the UK FRS, while supporting strong leadership.

Availability: a word used to describe whether a fire and rescue vehicle is able to respond to emergencies.

Capability: describes a skill, and where possible supporting equipment, that we have as an organisation. EG: "water rescue capability."

2/2/4 shift pattern: this is when a crew work two days, two nights and then have four days off.

Deploy/deployment: when we allocate a fire engine or vehicle to a specific area. EG: "We will deploy a fire engine to an emergency."

Resource: this can refer to staff and fire vehicles. EG: "We have on-call resources available at Guildford."

Vulnerable people: this term is very broad, but is defined as people who may need additional or special care or support. This could be for a range of reasons such as their age, a disability, risk of abuse and much more.

Critical incidents: An emergency that endangers people or property.

Trade Unions: this is a membership organisation for employees to join if they wish. They are in place to protect and advance the interest of their members.

Safe and Well Visits: these are home visits our staff undertake to ensure that residents are safe from a fire in their homes and refer them to other organisations if needed.

Surrey Standard: We set ourselves a ten-minute target to get to emergencies. We refer to this as the 'Surrey Standard'.

Non-domestic: this is a building that is not a home or house.