Cleveland Fire Authority plans to charge for false alarms after £184,000 lost on needless call-outs

And bosses say call-outs can be sparked by something as avoidable as someone having “a quick cigarette in a toilet”.

In 2018/19 Cleveland Fire Authority (CFA) received 535 calls to non-residential premises where no fire existed.

Unwanted Fire Signals, or false alarms, accounted for 6% of total emergency calls and resulted in the mobilisation of fire engines over 1,100 times.

Fire authority bosses said their service charge for an incident is currently £345 per fire engine per hour or part hour, and the consultation looks at recovering costs at this rate.

This means the bill for non-residential false alarms in 2018/19 was at least £184,575.

Councillors raised concerns over false alarms at the recent Cleveland Fire Authority meeting, calling for charges for businesses and non-residential properties responsible.

Coun Marjorie James, Hartlepool Borough Council representative, said: “When we’re called out for false alarms, and we get regular false alarms on industrial estates and shops and all sorts of things, we have to be able to charge.

“I’m not saying we charge for every item or for every offence, but if it becomes regular, and some of them are quite regular, we should have the right to levy a charge.”

Chief Fire Officer Ian Hayton said the fire authority has taken a ‘very strong stance’ to try and reduce incidents.

He said: “We now really call-challenge and don’t attend a lot of non-residential false alarms.”

He added a consultation exercise is currently ongoing via their website and social media accounts looking at potentially charging businesses who are repeat offenders.

The results of the consultation will come back to a future meeting of the fire authority, with their current policy not to charge organisations.

The trigger point listed in the consultation is to potentially charge after the fifth false alarm within a 12-month period, and all subsequent call-outs, but this could be debated between councillors at future meetings.

Coun Luke Frost, Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council representative, said it should be after three incidents.

He said: “It currently costs £345 a time to attend an alarm that has been raised simply because there may be a member of staff having a quick cigarette in a toilet.

“That should not be coming to us and it’s only right that we charge after so many offences.

“We have to do it, we are tight on finance, if we’re to show anything, it’s that we’re not to be made fools of.”

Coun Andrew Stephenson, who also represents Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, disagreed and said they can’t ‘put money in front of call outs’ and must take a ‘safety first’ approach.

CFA voted on February 14 to increase the amount it is paid via council tax bills by 1.9% for 2020/21, in line with the maximum 2% government referendum limit.

:: To take part in the false alarms consultation visit the Cleveland Fire Brigade Twitter and Facebook accounts or www.clevelandfire.gov.uk/about/consultations.