North Yorkshire’s deputy mayor wants to work with employers to enable more coastal volunteer firefighters to respond to callouts while at their day jobs.
Jo Coles, York and North Yorkshire’s deputy mayor for policing, fire, and crime, has said she wants to see more employers allow volunteer firefighters to respond to calls while they are at work.
Ms Coles, who was appointed by elected mayor David Skaith in June 2024, said that the recently created Combined Authority was hoping to use its powers to increase cooperation with businesses and employers.
Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), she said:
“We are looking at how we work with employers around support for people who are on-call firefighters.
“If someone has a job, say, working in a supermarket, but they’re also an on-call firefighter if there’s a call that comes in, does that business say no you can’t take a call during work hours, or actually will they be prepared to flex their business model with them being an on-call firefighter and respond accordingly?”
She added:
“Now that we are a Combined Authority we can look at that stuff a bit more than we could have in terms of ways in which we work with employers to see how better they might support staff who are on-call firefighters.”
The LDRS asked the deputy mayor for policing, fire, and crime about residents’ concerns in rural coastal communities regarding the manning of volunteer fire stations and the time it takes to attend fires in places such as the North Yorkshire Moors.
Commenting on part-time fire stations and rural response times, Ms Coles said that
“risk and resourcing decisions are made operationally by the chief fire officer and my job is to hold him to account for that”.
She admitted that
“there are challenges in some of the more rural locations” but highlighted that the fire service’s plan “always prioritises public safety and also will ensure we have firefighters in every part of the region, some of them absolute legends who are volunteers.”
She told the LDRS:
“I recently met some of the volunteers at Goathland Fire Station, which is a volunteer station, and the amazing individuals who staff that fire engine.
“The fire service is also always looking for people who would be on-call firefighters, not just in the towns and cities where we have a more permanent fire presence all the time, but also in those rural communities where it can be particularly difficult to find people who are prepared to be an on-call firefighter.”
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