INOTE from your Opinion comments on June 19, about the Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service, that you have not been following the meeting and reports of the County Council's Fire Service and Public Protection Committee over the past few years.

If you had, you would have known that, far from cutting back on the fire service in Lancashire, the County Council has funded major developments in the fire service. New breathing apparatus sets, new equipment for dealing with road traffic accidents and a new major incident support vehicle have been purchased.

Last year we purchased two aerial ladder platforms at a cost of £700,000. We are also introducing a new concept fire appliance which has taken two years to develop with local Lancashire businesses. This is a lighter, narrower vehicle which meets new emission standards and will become the standard vehicle in our fleet, on top of which we are purchasing 12 of these vehicles this year. We also built and staffed a new full-time fire station at Bamber Bridge.

You appear to have misconstrued a proper report informing the newly-formed Combined Fire Authority of the future needs of the service, as a report on past failings of the county council. This is far from the truth and I am positive that the new Combined Fire Authority will be as supportive to the Fire and Rescue Service in the future as the county council was in the past.

ROBERT CLARK, Chairman of the Combined Fire Authority.

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