Emergency crisis

2:25pm Tuesday 15th July 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

In the second of the Gazette's Facing the Fuel Crisis features, the Gazette looks at how Essex's emergency services are coping.

By the middle of last month, Essex Fire and Rescue Service had spent more than 30 per cent of its annual fuel budget.

As the year began on April 1, not January 1, this meant it was more than five per cent adrift.

By the New Year, the budget, technically, will have gone. But not the fuel.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Gordon Hunter is adamant about that.

"If the budget is spent, we would get the money from elsewhere. Nothing will stop us from operating our frontline services," he declared.

It isn't just the fire service which has been caught out by soaring fuel prices. All emergency services have been hit.

When they began sorting their fuel budgets for April 2008 to March 2009, prices were less than a £1 a litre for unleaded and just over that figure for diesel. By January, unleaded was 104.3p and diesel 109.2p. Now unleaded costs 119.3p and diesel is 132.7p.

supply No matter how astute the accountants, no-one could have anticipated such a hike.

"We haven't been hit too badly yet. We bulk-buy 90 per cent of our fuel and order it in advance, which means it is cheaper than at the pumps," said Mr Hunter.

"At any one time, we have 39 days' supply stored, so we can always respond to all emergency calls."

There are 1.7 million people living in Essex, and that number is increasing all the time. It is also one of the UK's largest counties - 1,334 square miles - and definitely one of the more diverse. It is sometimes rural, big time urban in the south, is home to estuaries, the A12, an international port, Stansted Airport and will have the 2012 Olympics on its doorstep.

"This is the problem all emergency services have got - Essex is the fastest expanding county in the UK and we also need to expand," said Mr Hunter.

Which means petrol and diesel's high price is the last thing Essex's emergency services want, especially as it could go even higher.

"We are about 20 per cent overspent - £70,000 - on our current fuel budget," pointed out Matthew Ware, of East of England Ambulance Service.

"If the current fuel price is maintained all the way through until the end of March 2009, this would leave us about £900,000 overspent on fuel."

If there is no more cash, the service will make savings elsewhere to pay for fuel.

"This will not be at the expense of our emergency services," he stressed.

"We would like to reassure the public that the emergency services will categorically not be affected."

Essex Air Ambulance has made the same promise.

The charity - which works closely with the East of England Ambulance Service - hires its helicopter from Bond Air Services in Gloucestershire.

"The company provides the plane, the pilot and the fuel," said Cliff Gale, operations manager.

"We are charged a set amount per litre which only changes if the figure is adjusted. That happens a couple of times a year - and the next one is due."

Essex Air Ambulance did budget for rising fuel prices, but that may not have been enough. It set aside £50,000 for fuel - currently, it costs the charity £1.5 million a year to run the service. But it may have to look at more ways of raising money if the price continues to rise.

"We can absorb a 30 per cent increase, but if our reserves start to fall, we will need more cash," said Mr Gale.

Not at the moment, though. Similar to the fire and ambulance services, the crunch will come late autumn.

Even Essex Police, which doesn't buy in bulk, will not feel the squeeze just yet.

"This is concentrating our minds," said John Gorton, Essex Police's transport chief.

"We are advising all drivers to economise, to drive more slowly unless they are responding to 999 calls."

Essex's police vehicles travel 14 million miles a year, and most fill up at petrol stations.

"We are part of a negotiated national contract which allows police officers to buy fuel at petrol stations using fuel cards," he explained.

"We do make significant levels of savings, but only on the pump prices - and, no, we would not save more by buying our fuel in bulk and storing it. It would be cheaper to buy from a supermarket than to do that."

WHO DRIVES WHAT AND AT WHAT COST

Essex Fire and Rescue Service

• 113 fire engines
• 23 special engines, including rescue tenders and off-road vehicles
• 72 support and training vehicles
• 143 incident command cars and vans
• Fuel prediction April 2008-March 2009: 620,000 litres on a budget of £574,600.

East of England Ambulance Service (serves six counties, including Essex)

• 273 frontline ambulances (Essex: 75)
• 215 marked response cars (Essex: 25)
• 237 non-emergency ambulances
• 25 major incident vehicles
• Fuel prediction April 2008-March 2009: 3.4 million litres on a budget of £4.5 million.

Essex Police

• 915 vehicles - police cars, pursuit vehicles, vans
• Fuel prediction April 2008-March 2009: 2.3 million litres on a budget of £2.25 million.

Essex Air Ambulance

• Helicopter - uses jet A1 fuel, same as a jumbo jet
• Fuel prediction April 2008-March 2009: 115,000 litres on a budget of £50,000.