At last months MQT, l questioned the Mayor about the impact of his fire cuts for Central London.

At the outset l was challenged by the chair of London Fire Brigade James Cleverly AM questioned about how in every 2 minutes the intensity of a  fire can quadruple.  As he attempted to heckle me, I told him that l found it surprising that he didn’t know this as chair of the Fire Authority of London!

I strongly suggest he reads the attached article by a scientist at the Fire Research Station of the exponential curve fo fires in commerical premises of how a fires intensity can double in two minutes. Its a long standing principle that holds as well for domestic fires.

Eventually l informed the Mayor that both the City of Westminster & Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea uanismously agreed motions against the fire cuts in their boroughs. This involves losing both Westminster & Knightsbridge fire stations and an engine at Chelsea Fire Station. This was of course before the London Fire Brigade released details of increased response times for loca wards in London. The statistics reveal that 41 local wards in London will noe fall outside of target response times, due to the Mayor’s decision to cut 12 fire stations, 18 fire engines and 520 firefighters. The wards include Abbey Road, Churchill, Tachbrook, Vincent Square, Warwick and West End in the City of Westminster.

In Warwick the increase is from4.34 to 7.16 minutes; Vincent Square the increase will be 3.54 to 6.14 minutes and Tachbrook increase from 4.29 minutes to 6.33. These increases are all more then 2 minutes. These might not sound alot but a fire as stated already can quadruple in intensity every two minutes. These increases are truly scandalous and no wonder they didn’t release this information sooner.

The public consultations meetings for the respective two boroughs are both next week as outlined below;

 1. Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea public consultation of draft London Safety Plan 5, 10th of June commencing at  7.00pm at Kensington Small Hall, Hornton Street, W8 7NX

 2. City of Westminster, public consultation of draft London Safety Plan 5, 11th June commencing at 7.00pm at Parker Morris Hall, The Abbey Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BU

I strongly recommend residents of both the borough of Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea turn up and show their concerns that the Mayor could take such risks with their lives.