'Suffragettes' chain themselves to fire engine

Campaigners opposing plans to close fire stations have chained themselves to a fire engine dressed as suffragettes.

Sam Strudwick, Lillian Francis and Carol King pulled the stunt in Dorchester to urge people to take part in the public consultation on the cuts proposed by Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service (DWFRS).

Strudwick said: "The suffragettes were the excellent women fighting back for the votes for women, and we thought we'd turn it into women fighting to save our fire stations."

The fire service said its proposed list of stations to close was based on data from the last six years - including how busy the station was, how fast and how often the station could respond to incidents and how other nearby stations could respond instead.

As part of cost-saving proposals, four Dorset stations have been earmarked for closure - Charmouth, Cranborne, Hamworthy and Maiden Newton.

In Wiltshire, Bradford on Avon, Mere, Ramsbury and Wilton are also under threat.

Speaking while chained to the fire engine, which was a decommissioned, non-operational vehicle, Strudwick, from Maiden Newton, said: "Cuts can kill."

"The response times are going to be a lot longer, and there's climate change, more heath fires, more floods and firefighters don't just rescue people from fires," she told the BBC.

"We've had so many car accidents. Only a few years ago firefighters from Maiden Newton saved a young girl's life."

She added: "I used to be an NHS worker and it's always frontline staff that get cut, and I know what that means for ordinary people, so it's not negotiable."

Andy Elliott, chair of the Dorset and Wiltshire branch of the Fire & Rescue Services Association, said: "If we close fire stations, particularly rural fire stations, the response time will be extended, in some cases doubled, from a 10-minute response standard to at least 20 minutes to get a fire engine to a location, and minutes absolutely matter.

"Rural lives matter just as much as urban lives."

DWFRS said that the latest financial settlement from the government was not enough for the service to keep running as it currently is.

It said it had a projected budget shortfall of £1.2m in 2026–27, £1.5m in 2027–28 and £1.7m in 2028–29.

If all eight proposed stations closed, the fire service said it had calculated a saving of £1.5m annually.

The consultation ends on 15 May, with a final decision expected on 30 June.

A spokesperson from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: "We know services like Dorset and Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Authority work tirelessly to keep their community safe and over the next year we will support them with £79.5m, a 4% funding increase this year."

There are also proposals to change the way Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service is structured, with three on-call stations facing closure.