lfb and linconshire fire service in the s**t

karbonkoncepts

AssetCo, the owners of London and Lincolnshire’s fire engines, will go under on Monday owing a staggering £140million to creditors, unless a take over deal is agreed in the next 48 hours, a registrar’s hearing was told on Thursday evening. The Fire Brigades Union warned that fire engines could be seized by creditors and sold off to recover the debts if the company goes under.
AssetCo owns all London fire engines and 50,000 pieces of safety and rescue kit and leases them back to the fire brigade. It does the same in Lincolnshire.
“The entire operational assets of both brigades could be seized by creditors and sold off in full or in part. Neither brigade appears to have any fallback plan of any credibility.
“The foolish decision to privatise all fire engines and kit leaves them sitting on the sidelines with no power over what happens to their critical operational assets.The future of the fire Service?? PFI? PPE? Lunacy?

EMSCHAP

These deals always seemed to good to be true and now we know. Still look on the bright side, they might be some nice good quality second hand appliances coming on the market for Irish CFOs to buy at bargain prices. In fact there are already some good quality ex Lincolnshire appliances on the run in Ireland dating from the begining of their current deal with AssetCo.

MagicSean

The benefits of privatising the emergency services?

starviewadams

Pretty shocking that this situation is actually able to happen,hopefully a deal can be somehow worked out.

Delancey

So long as London and Lincolnshire Fire Brigades keep up the lease payments I can't see anything happening TBH.
Cash Flow is of far more importance than a quick ' fire sale ' ( forgive the pun ) , selling appliances will only crystallise massive early losses.
Methinks a tad of scaremongering by the Fire Brigade unions.

maglite

It would be a PR disaster for the company to effectively shut down the fire service for a major city. I would also image a trying to sell such a volume of appliances would destroy their market value.

As for the PPE and Equipment, they are almost valueless in a second hand market. Sounds like a PR stunt by the Union. Leasing a fleet is quite an efficient way of running a service.

I'm sure if there are any genuine concerns, the state would step in and buy it all up one way or the other (or at least sort out the essentials).

Fire, Ambulance and Police services should be provided by every developed country, designed to cover all areas. They should not be a private agency or a service you can opt-out of (in my opinion).

Zuppy

A pretty stupid situation to be in without a fall back plan. It seems the FBU is only pointing out the obvious and not scare mongering. It will be interesting to see what actually happens in the next month or two but if your planning to sell your own fire engine, do it quick before there's a glut in the Market. :-)

Stinicker

The effects of Thatcher will be felt for many a long day after she is dead and buried and I for one will gladly sing a tune the day the cow is dead.