Fire engines cut for being too quick

Fire engines in central London are to be axed because they arrive too quickly to emergency call-outs, the capital's fire chiefs said today.

Some 10 fire stations in the city's busiest areas are to suffer cuts as part of the biggest changes to the service since the Second World War.

The draft London Safety Plan for 2005/6 published today makes clear that in future only one fire engine will be sent to 999 calls compared with two at present.

The reason given for the move is that the second fire engines called out to emergencies in the affected areas "arrive much more quickly than the average".

The engines will be deployed instead to suburban areas where the current response times are longer than the average.