Average fire engine response times in some boroughs are more than 20 seconds faster than expected according to internal London Fire Brigade figures provided to London Assembly members.
Last year Mayor Boris Johnson pushed through proposals to close 10 fire stations and axe 14 fire engines despite opposition from firefighters, local AMs, MPs, councils and members of the fire authority.
Critics said that the closures would worsen the brigade’s performance and risked putting lives at risk, claims denied by fire commissioner Ron Dobson.
A legal challenge to the Mayor’s decision brought by a number of councils was rejected, leaving local taxpayers facing tens of thousands of pounds in legal bills.
The performance figures, issued to AMs ahead of a Q&A with Dobson and fire authority chair James Cleverly on Wednesday, show that in 21 boroughs crews met or beat predicted attendance times for the first engine.
The projected attendance times were first published as part of a public consultation on the station closures and resulting job losses.
Westminster saw the best performance with crews attending in 5 minutes 19 seconds versus a predicted response of five minutes 48, while in Camden and Greenwich expected response times were beaten by 22 seconds.
However in Hillingdon attendance times averaged 6 minutes 41 against a prediction of 6 minutes 16 and in Havering crews missed a 5 minutes 40 prediction by 12 seconds.
Despite slower than expected performance in some boroughs, average London-wide response times were 5 minutes 29 seconds versus the predicted five minutes 32 seconds.
In nine boroughs – Barnet, Croydon, Enfield, Haringey, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Newham, Richmond upon Thames and Sutton – response times in the current year were faster than in 2012/13.
But in six boroughs response times breached the brigade’s target of 6 minutes for the first appliance to arrive on site.
Despite all boroughs meeting the 8 minute target for the second appliance, average response times were worse than predictions at 6 minutes 51 versus an expected 6 minutes 31.
Insiders say the slower than modelled second appliance response times are due to the brigade withdrawing fire engines from some stations for use by private sector contingency crews hired to cover strikes.
