In my first year as MP, I have seen two major fires in the constituency, one in Jaywick and the second just last week in Clacton-on-Sea.
Clacton Fire Station has served the constituents incredibly well and this was acknowledged with their Team of the Year award just a few months ago.
But with the population increasing in Tendring to more than 156,000 and the median age of the area being significantly higher than the rest of the country, there is real pressure on the fire service.
Clacton Fire Station operates with two appliances, however only one engine is staffed full-time with the other being on-call.
On the night of the fire last week, due to staff shortages, the on-call appliance was off the run.
This meant that the first crew to attend the fire arrived at 12.44am and had to tackle the blaze on their own for a full 19 minutes – the second engine to arrive had to come all the way from Colchester, attending the scene at 1.03am.
To add to this the engine at Weeley Station was mobilised but stood down due to a mechanical defect and the full on-call crew at Brightlingsea was also unavailable.
I must add that appliances from Manningtree arrived on the scene at 1.15am, and Dovercourt arrived at 1.23am. Those involved were incredible, but the story could have been very different.
In 1978 Clacton saw a major fire where only one of the appliances was available and due to the lack of resources, sadly, nine people lost their lives.
With a lack of resources you would have to think twice about committing crews into burning buildings.
We must not allow history to repeat itself. Our firefighters deserve to have the correct resources available to them to carry out their jobs correctly and safely.
And the people of Clacton should have fully operational emergency services available to protect them in their time of need.
I believe that now is the time for us to re-evaluate our emergency response resources in the constituency and I would like to hear from you, as to whether you think Clacton needs two wholetime operational appliances.
Please email me at Nigel.Farage@parliament.uk to let me know what you think.
