COUNCILLORS will visit Galashiels Fire Station on Friday morning to see for themselves if changes to the staffing establishment will affect operational performance.

That fear was expressed at the end of August when the decision to slash the number of full-time firefighters based at the Abbotsford Road facility from 44 to 28 was announced.

Due to take effect from September 1, the staff cut was delayed pending talks with the workforce over redeployment arrangements.

But last week, the Police, Fire & Rescue and Safer Communities Board heard the reduction would finally take place this month.

This week’s tour by board members to the Galashiels station will be led by Local Senior Officer (LSO) John Dickie who said staff in the town would act as a “flexible resource” and would, when required, be “deployed at all retained duty system stations in the Borders to maintain fire cover for local communities”.

The specialist Incident Support Unit (ISU) at Galashiels would be replaced with a new water rescue vehicle.

“Incident support will be provided from either a demountable pod or the station’s USAR [urban search and rescue] vehicle.” In his report for the three months to September 30, LSO Dickie said his service had attended 17 accidental house fires in the Borders – down nine on the corresponding period last year – with most starting in kitchens and either being extinguished on arrival or requiring minimal intervention. As a result two people had suffered slight injuries and required medical attention.

There had been 227 “unwanted fire signals” – either hoaxes of because of alarm faults – compared to 254 over the same three months in 2013.