As London marks the 350th anniversary of its devastating Great Fire, Sadiq Khan has set up a review of the capital’s current fire-fighting capacity, focussing on the impact of cuts to the fire service made under Boris Johnson. In the face of fierce opposition from the fire brigades’ union and non-Conservative politicians, these saw the closure of ten fire stations, the loss of 14 fire engines and the cutting of 552 firefighters’ jobs in order to produce the statutory London safety plan within a reduced budget.
That all happened in September 2013, amid assurances from the Tory chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) that Londoners’ safety would not be compromised: after all, there would still be 102 fire stations and 155 fire engines (though a further 13 held in reserve have also since gone), despite the number of fires in the capital having fallen by half over the previous ten years. The brigade would still aim to have an engine at the scene of fires within six minutes and a second one within eight, if required.
However, a year or so later Labour AM Fiona Twycross, then vice chair of LFEPA and now Khan’s appointee as it chair, produced figures showing that response times to incidents had increased in more than half of London’s 649 electoral wards, that average response times in 214 of them was in excess of six minutes and that in five of them - three in Newham, two in Southwark - the response times had risen by between two and three minutes since the cuts had taken effect.
The London Fire Brigade countered that the London-wide response time remained below six minutes on average and that it was therefore meeting its target. But Khan’s election manifesto declared that response times had become “a danger to the safety of Londoners” and pledged to undertake the “full review” now set in train, saying this would not only consider the fitness of the service for dealing with fires “but also coping with major civil contingencies such as a terrorist attack or a flood”.
Khan has made a good choice of leader of the review. Anthony Mayer, these days chairman of the One Housing Group, was the first chief executive of the Greater London Authority, setting up the brand new body and then serving Ken Livingstone throughout his eight years as mayor. Before all that, he’d been the top private secretary to three government ministers in Whitehall, including Michael Heseltine. He knows his onions.
Mayer also knows a bit about Johnson. In her fine biography, Just Boris, Sonia Purnell describes him, then overseeing the transition from the Livingstone years prior to retiring, taking Johnson successor out to dinner at Joe Allen’s restaurant. Mayer, who considers Livingstone to have been a fine administrator, felt he needed to have a chat with the new mayor about the utter chaos into which City Hall had descended. This basically entailed pointing out to him that having been elected mayor he had to actually do the job. If anyone is equipped to help Khan put right any avoidable misjudgments in LFEPA under Johnson, it is he.
