Shropshire’s fire and rescue chief today pledged to prioritise “public safety” in the face of Government funding cuts.

Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service is being forced into making operational changes in Telford to help achieve £3 million savings by 2014.

Chief Fire Officer Paul Raymond said the savings required represented “a huge challenge”, but added every possible step would be taken to minimise the impact on response times.

He urged the Government to “recognise the special risk in rural areas like Shropshire”.

Over the next four years, the service is facing a 28 per cent cut to its current £21m budget.

Its grant from central Government has been cut by 9.5 per cent to £7.48m for 2011/12 – dropping by 3.4 per cent to £7.22m in 2012/13 – representing a 12.9 per cent cut over two years. If the reductions are mirrored in subsequent years some £4 million savings will need to be achieved over four years.

Currently, around 500 firefighters are employed in the county.

As well as cuts to senior commanders and support staff, the service plans to operate with 50 fewer frontline firefighters by 2015.

Mr Raymond said: “Inflation adds substantially to all of our costs like heating, lighting and fuel.

“A £337,000 tax freeze grant awarded to all authorities, including fire and rescue services, is set to run out in 2014. We have already had a two-year pay freeze. And there are other aspects of expenditure in the service, such as pensions for part-time staff.

“Our concerns now are trying to reduce the budget by a further million without impacting on public safety,” he added.

Telford MP David Wright raised the issue in the Commons yesterday, calling on ministers to “look again” at the grant allocation for Shropshire.

Fire Minister Bob Neill said the setting of fire authority budgets and service delivery were a local matter determined by individual authorities – not by central Government.

Mr Wright said afterwards: “This is an enormous cut to a fire and rescue service. I want to see response times monitored very closely because if they lengthen then the Government will have to revisit the funding arrangements for Shropshire.”

By London Reporter Sunita Patel