A north-east councillor has raised concerns his local fire station is under-staffed and called for a new recruitment drive.
Independent Fraserburgh member Ian Tait claimed that the station on the town’s Dennyduff Road had been three staff short of its full complement of 20 firefighters for “months”.
Mr Tait – who has now written to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service demanding answers – also argued it was “inexcusable” the station was omitted from a recent recruitment drive.
He said: “I am not happy the Fraserburgh fire and rescue station is undermanned.
“I am very concerned this could adversely affect the service given by SFRS to my constituents.
“It is not acceptable that this situation has lasted for months and these vacancies have not been filled. Yet Macduff, Banff, Portsoy and Aberchirder stations are at full strength.”
The Fraserburgh and District councillor insisted he was not “criticising the local SFRS staff who are doing a great job”, but he was angry their hands were tied over staff decisions.
However, last night a spokesman for the SFRS rebuffed Mr Tait’s claims.
He said: “Fraserburgh is tremendously well-served by dedicated retained firefighters who achieved an incredible 99.97 per cent availability over the past year.
“Our crews’ extraordinary commitment meant Fraserburgh’s primary appliance was unavailable for just two hours and 15 minutes in the entire year – and there were only 10 hours when the station’s secondary appliance was unavailable.”
He described this as a “truly exceptional level of fire cover”, a claim which has now been made to Mr Tait in writing.
“For anyone to suggest that Fraserburgh has anything other than an outstanding fire and rescue provision is entirely inaccurate and does a great disservice to the station’s crews.”
In March, Mr Tait and fellow councillors on the Banff and Buchan area committee were presented with a routine progress report from Local Senior Officer David Rout.
In his update to members, Mr Rout revealed firefighters from Fraserburgh were involved in rescue operations in the Garioch area during the heavy flooding in December and early January.