11:50am Monday 16th February 2009
By Andy Tate, Parliamentary Correspondent
More than a third of Sussex's firefighters could be lost if a controversial European Union diktat is imposed on the UK, campaigners have warned.
They claim moves to force Britain to adopt the European Working Time Directive would leave the part-time, retained fire service unviable because it would be illegal for anyone to work for more than 48 hours a week.
Retained firefighters, many of whom hold down full-time day jobs on top of their commitment to the fire service, make up 37% of all firefighter posts in East Sussex and 44% in West Sussex.
The UK has long been granted an opt-out to the directive but following a recent vote by the European Parliament it will be scrapped in 2012.
Replacing retained firefighters, who earn on average between £5,000 and £8,000 a year for agreeing to be available for up to 120 hours per week, with 24-hour whole-time cover would be extremely expensive, leading to fears the coverage and reliability of the service would suffer.
Gary Towson, from West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, said: "We would dispute that it would take hours to respond to calls.
"We will be watching the outcome of this issue very closely in order to see what impact it will have.
"Our retained firefighters are very important to us, with 19 out of our 28 stations fully retained."
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service was unable to comment.
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