It seems that the idea of rotating busy fire appliances out of busy stations into quieter stations seems to have fallen by the wayside, I was under the impression it was happening. Clearly its not, several new trucks have gone to stations doing less than 10 calls a year on average, anyone else think this is a poor use of resources when they are struggling to keep up with the 20 year program. I would have though it would be even more prudent to strictly implement this program of rotation due to the fact that we can't keep up with new vehicles and leaving a older vehicle in a busy fleet increases the risk of break downs etc where as an older vehicle in a station doing less than 10 calls a year will last longer, assuming all servicing etc is kept up to speed. For example a brigade doing on average 5 calls over the last 10 years, with an average of 25 hrs service, received a brand new 34. A station averaging 380 calls a year over 10 years and averaging 3000 hours service has an 17 year old 24 passed down from a quieter station. (many other examples of this)
If I ran a transport fleet like that, I would go broke very quickly, why should CFS be any different. I really can't fathom this. Yes we are all vols and everyone deserves new gear etc etc etc. The fact of the matter is, well with our budget, no they don't. No one else does it. SAAS vols get handed down ambulances, MFS retained mostly get handed down trucks, except for the odd specialist truck. Why would you run a fleet like this?
