Twelve fire appliances and eight 4×4 vehicles are to be bought for West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service after funding was approved by the new Sussex and Brighton Strategic Authority today (Wednesday 29 July).
A report to the authority’s board about the £3.3 million investment said: “Existing fire appliances are ageing and becoming at greater risk of mechanical issues.”
The strategic authority – formally the Sussex and Brighton Mayoral Combined County Authority – is due to take over the running of the two existing fire services next April.
The report said: “West Sussex Fire and Rescue Services has a number of fire appliances and other vehicles which are reaching the end of their operational lifecycle and which, if not replaced in a timely way, will become increasingly at risk of mechanical failure which could impact negatively on public safety.
“The West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service requires 12 new fire appliances and eight new 4×4 vehicles.
“The West Sussex County Council capital programme currently includes approved funding to replace these vehicles and appliances.
“The 4×4 vehicles are proposed to be purchased this year and be operational before the transition to the strategic authority, subject to procurement timelines.
“The costs of servicing the funding of these vehicles through interest and ‘minimum revenue provision’ – the way we need to account for depreciation – will form one of the revenue costs that transfer to the strategic authority.
“The fire appliances have a longer lead time. The chassis are likely to be procured and built before the transition to the (strategic authority).
“However, the assembly of the bodywork around the chassis will likely run into 2027-28. This means that the final appliances will not be delivered until after April 2027 when responsibility for the service (and its finances) will sit with the (strategic authority).”
Overall, the bill for the 20 new vehicles should total about £4.8 million, with West Sussex County Council expected to pay for the 12 chassis from its capital programme this year, costing about £1.5 million.
The strategic authority will pay the interest on any borrowing costs. And the final payments for the appliances will need to come from the strategic authority in the 2027-28 financial year. These final payments are estimated to total about £3.3 million.
The report urged the strategic authority board to approve the spending, saying that otherwise “some contractors will either not bid for the work or increase their bids by a risk premium”.
It added: “This would represent poor value for money for the (strategic authority).
“East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service has adopted a different approach to procuring new appliances and procures three new appliances a year as a rolling replacement programme.
“As they have already procured the three appliances which are being built this financial year they do not anticipate any carry-over of cost from their procurement into next financial year.”
As such, there was no need for the strategic authority board to approve any extra capital spending for vehicles for East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.
Reform UK councillor Andy Woolley, one of the two vice-chairs of the strategic authority and leader of East Sussex County Council, asked if the new fire appliances would be “like-for-like”. The existing fire appliances are understood to be diesel.
Councillor Woolley said that East Sussex had looked at electric vehicles. They were much more expensive and, he said after the board meeting, not yet practical for Sussex.
The batteries lacked the range to power a heavy fire appliance over the sorts of distances that they were regularly expected to travel. Once at a blaze, they would still need to power the water pumps.
Nick Bell, the strategic authority’s interim director of finance, said that the new fire appliances would almost certainly be more environmentally friendly than those they replaced, not least because many of those vehicles dated back 20 years or more.
Shouldn’t this be factored into the yearly running costs where money is put aside to replace equipment? Fire Appliances and other equipment are ‘consumables’ and depreciate over time. Asking for large chunks of cash instead of accruing the money over time sounds like bad management!