FIREMEN warned councillors that lives would be at risk if proposed cuts at Weymouth fire station got the go-ahead.

The comments came after senior fire officers outlined the proposals at a full meeting of Weymouth and Portland Borough Council.

Dorset Fire and Rescue Service’s chief fire officer Darran Gunter said the service was considering retraining some of Weymouth’s aerial ladder crewmen for fire awareness and safety work.

He said other proposed changes include relocating one of the station’s three fire appliances and creating a ‘community’ fire station in the town where people could learn about fire safety.

Councillors heard the fire service’s preferred location for the new site was Westhaven Junior School, Radipole Lane.

The secretary of Dorset’s Fire Brigades Union, Clem Stanley, said members were in favour of increasing the public’s knowledge about fire safety.

But Mr Stanley, who works at Weymouth station, added: “What we don’t agree with is reducing the fire cover for the community to do it.

“What we feel is that response works and fire engines work.

“There are statistics to prove that the quicker the response and the speed of a firefighter in getting to a situation the greater the chance there is of people surviving it.”

Mr Stanley drew an analogy between the proposed cuts and the ill-fated Titanic – saying that the ship’s lifeboats were only needed once but that there were too few when they were needed.

Earlier in the meeting, Mr Gunter had said that retained firefighters might operate the aerial ladder more in the future – and that the fire service calculated this would only increase the appliance’s overall response time by five minutes.

Weymouth-based firefighter Dan Chaplain said: “I’ve been on one of the rescues where the aerial ladder was used and I tell you, the guy on that roof did not want to be up there another five more minutes let alone one.”

Councillor Christine James questioned the fire service’s estimate that increased use of retained firefighters would only add five minutes to response times.

She said: “With summer traffic and road works it just doesn’t seem like very much time for getting around the borough.”