Thousands wasted on false alarms of fires at schools each year
Published Date:
14 May 2008
Thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money and firefighters' hours have been wasted by false alarms and hoax calls at schools in Hastings and St Leonards.
Figures released under the Freedom of Information Act show more than £23,000 has been spent since September 2006 on fuel and man hours attending unnecessary emergency call-outs.
During the same period firefighters were called to 28 false alarms and hoaxes while they attended ten incidents of genuine fires.
On three separate occasions crews received a hoax call from Castledown School in January last year, one from Westfield School last November and Hollington School last April.
East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service have attended 25 hoaxes and 141 false alarms across the whole county since September 2006.
There were 109 genuine emergencies during the same period.
Last year it cost the fire service £848 for each call-out.
Tony Giles, crew manager of Blue Watch at Hastings fire station in Bohemia Road, said: "Attending false alarms takes up a great deal of East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service's time and can have the potential to cause delays in our attendance at real emergencies."
The full article contains 200 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
-
Last Updated:
14 May 2008 10:42 AM
-
Source:
n/a
-
Location:
Hastings
