It must have been very frightening for people living and working near to the fires breaking out across the city the other day and our firefighters did a tremendous job protecting life and property.

It was reassuring to see that additional resources could be pulled in from neighbouring areas to help, but I am fearful of a similar outbreak of fire in 2016 after further cuts have been implemented.

All the Labour Councillors on East Sussex Fire Authority voted against the cuts that will take effect in 2016, when we will lose one of our five fire engines and 24 firefighters in the city.

At roughly the same time, the remaining cuts will take effect in nearby fire authorities and statistics show that some are struggling to provide fire cover within their own borders, let alone supply back-up to East Sussex.

Cuts to frontline emergency services are a false economy.

We all expect well-trained professional firefighters to appear within minutes and put out a fire and as retired firefighter Kevin Maile said, they feel a "moral imperative" to help when they arrive at an incident.

To wait for resources coming from a great distance leaves them compromised – wanting to deal with the emergency before their eyes, while prevented from helping unless they put their own lives at risk. The longer it takes to get a fire under control, the greater the risk of leaving people homeless or a small business unable to recover.

This is too much to ask of our citizens and of our firefighters.

I am asking the fire authority, once again, to reconsider its decision to cut one of our fire engines in Brighton and Hove.

Nancy Platts, chairwoman of Brighton, Hove and District Labour Party