POOR quality roads can slow fire engines down on their way to emergencies, posing a particular problem in rural areas, a senior Shropshire Fire Service officer has said.

Assistant Chief Fire Officer Simon Hardiman said crew vehicles’ on-board technology finds the fastest route to a destination, “but that’s dependent on being able to apply the speed limits”.

He was replying to Wem councillor and fire authority member Pauline Dee, who said road surface quality and drainage were issues they needed to raise with Shropshire Council.

A Shropshire and Wrekin Fire and Rescue Authority committee was discussing a report by Officer Hardiman and CFO Rod Hammerton which said Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service was on track to achieve six out of seven performance targets in 2020-21, but was behind on an arrival time indicator.

The target is for the first engine to arrive with four firefighters on board at the scene of an emergency within 15 minutes on 89 per cent of occasions. Between April and November this year, the Shropshire brigade logged a time below that quarter-hour mark 85.6 per cent of the time.

Officer Hammerton and Officer Hardiman wrote this rate matches national averages and Shropshire’s own figures from last year. A geographical shift in the location of incidents also makes this a challenging target, they wrote.

“Evidence is available to demonstrate that there has been a three per cent increase in incidents occurring in rural areas between 2015 and 2019,” they wrote.

In previous fire authority meetings chief officers have explained that urban homes are usually closer to full-time fire stations and better covered by prevention and outreach work, so the “average” fire now takes place further away from towns.

“This will lead to an increased travel time to reach the remote areas and, therefore, affect the response standard,” Officers Hammerton and Hardiman added.

Cllr Dee said: “Living in a vast rural area, with Whixall and Wem Rural, we know the importance of having a good-quality highway, because we’ve got the flooding, et cetera.

“I think that is something we should talk to Shropshire Council about. With regards to the delay, and it taking longer to get to rural areas, I think this is something we should be pushing.”

Officer Hardiman told the Standards, Audit and Performance Committee: “We use a road modelling tool to identify where we can reach in certain times but, obviously, that’s dependent on being able to apply the speed limits that are in place for those road.

“Good conditions and good roads do assist us with getting to those incident in the times set out in the response standard.”

Cllr Dee also thanked Watch Manager Pat Johnson, from the brigade’s protection department, saying she was “delighted” with some advice he had given her recently.

“I made an enquiry about problems at Wem Youth Club,” Cllr Dee said.

“Though he can’t come out to help, he gave me a lot of written advice which I can pass on to our committee, because I was concerned about the dangers of people parking too close to the building and obstructing the exit.”