London Fire Brigade has drawn up plans to cut its support lorries from six to two, taking Wandsworth’s only fire engine out of service for hours at a time, Putney.news understands.
The plans are said to have caused serious concern within the fire service.
The six Operational Support Units carry spare breathing apparatus cylinders, water and other kit to fires, floods and chemical incidents across London. Wandsworth would keep its lorry but lose eight posts.
When the lorry is called out, a driver and a firefighter would be taken off the fire engine to crew it, leaving too few behind to take the main fire engine out. A trip typically takes four to six hours there and back.
City Hall says no final decision has been made, and the brigade says its review is still running. A spokesperson for the Mayor told Putney.news: “No final decision has been made as part of the Brigade’s two year review and any changes are designed to improve the effectiveness of the Brigade.”
A London Fire Brigade spokesperson said: “Once the decisions from the review have been made, the Brigade will ensure Londoners are made aware of how our service has changed.”
Neither denied the plans. The brigade did not answer questions about how many support units it plans to keep, how many posts would go or how the Wandsworth lorry would be crewed.
Wandsworth’s engine, based at the fire station on West Hill, covers most of Putney and Roehampton, Wandsworth town and parts of Southfields. It was sent out 2,069 times last year.
Is this a cut?
Sadiq Khan’s 2024 manifesto promised “no cuts to the London Fire Brigade (LFB) frontline”. In April the brigade said this year’s savings had been made “without reducing the number of fire stations, appliances, firefighters or its regulatory capabilities”.
The Mayor’s spokesperson said: “The Mayor will continue to deliver the funding needed for London Fire Brigade and protect the frontline, building a safer London for everyone.”
The support units have been in the brigade’s sights for savings since its 2023/24 budget round, when an internal efficiency review recommended reforming them. The savings did not materialise, and the idea was folded into a wider review of specialist units.
The brigade launched a two-year Specialist Capability Review in 2025. Its annual plan for this year names the support units among the review’s priorities and says it will “deliver efficiencies”. This year’s budget includes savings from what it calls the “specials review”.
The brigade said: “The purpose of the review is to ensure we provide the best possible service to London, with modernised and improved capabilities.”
Who gets there first
The brigade’s own incident records show Wandsworth’s engine was first on the scene at about three in four of the incidents on its patch, false alarms included, over the past two and a half years, more of them in SW15 than SW18.
When it got there first, the typical wait was 4 minutes 42 seconds. When another station’s engine got there first, it was 7 minutes 38 seconds: about three minutes longer.
Engines from Fulham and Battersea are the most likely to arrive first when Wandsworth’s does not. Some of those slower calls were near the edge of the patch, closer to another station, so not all of the gap comes from Wandsworth’s engine being away.
How often the lorry goes out, and so how many hours the engine could be off the road each month, is not published. The brigade’s open data covers fire engines only.
The London Assembly’s Fire Committee next meets on 21 October; the support units are not on its published programme for that meeting. Léonie Cooper, the Assembly Member for Merton and Wandsworth, who sits on the committee, was asked whether she had been briefed on the plans and had not replied by the time of publication.
Want to raise this?
Léonie Cooper is the London Assembly Member for Merton and Wandsworth and sits on the Assembly’s Fire Committee: leonie.cooper@london.gov.uk
Assembly Members can put written questions to the Mayor; the answers are published.
Fire Committee meetings are open to the public and webcast. Details: London Assembly Fire Committee.
Having survived a major fire, I can tell you that an awful lot can burn in 3 minutes !! As for assurances that services will not suffer, i operate on the basis that a broad brush way to tell if politicians are lying is to check whether their lips are moving !!