PLANS to reshape Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service have been given the go ahead by the county’s fire authority, as critics once again raise concerns over safety.

The changes to the service will lead to the loss more than 200 staff posts across the county and will see the number of large, fully equipped fire engines reduced from 76 to 25.

Last year, plans to save £5m by 2020 and cut more than 300 posts were announced in a bid to tackle a £12m deficit, but these were later scaled back to cuts of £4.1m. Planned job losses were also reined in. Originally, instead of 86 full-time and 225 retained firefighter posts were set to go; but now 60 full-time and 152 retained posts are expected to go, but no one will face compulsory redundancy.

New equipment and techniques will also be put in place, with the raft of changes set to be implemented from next month.

The plans were drawn up by the service following a review and consultation involving staff, the public and stakeholders between September and December last year. Chris Carter, chairman of the fire authority, said. “We now move forward, accepting these final proposals which we believe will build on the successes of the past to deliver new and improved capabilities for the future.

“I welcome the next phase of the implementation of the final proposals from April 2016.”

The current crewing model at Bordon (Retained) Fire Station consists of a single “enhanced vehicle” (a full-size fire engine), with 15 on-call firefighters and an average first response time of nine minutes and 32 seconds.

In the future, the station will adopt a model which will see the current engine replaced with a single “intermediate vehicle” (a smaller fire engine) and a slim-downed workforce of 13 on-call firefighters.

But proposals now include one additional on-call full-time-equivalent post to crew a co-responder vehicle.

Co-responders are firefighters trained in basic life support, provided and part funded by the South Central Ambulance Service.

According to the Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service, these changes will save £10,000 and are expected to see an improvement to response time, bringing it down to eight minutes and 30 seconds.

But critics have said that claims of improved response times are only as a consequence of having smaller vehicles serving areas and that the changes will mean that “proper fire engines” (vehicles that have superior life-saving equipment) could take longer to respond as they will be spread more thinly across Hampshire.

During the consultation, the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Stop the Cuts campaigners spoke out against Hampshire’s plans, having seen similar changes to its service.

Retired firefighter Tony Morris said that, although capable of handling “70 per cent of calls”, intermediate vehicles cannot deal with the “most serious and most life threatening incidents”.

Gary Jackson, from the Fire Brigades Union, said the union did not back the cuts, but acknowledged they had been brought about because of a reduction in Government funding which caused the deficit.