Bolton Fire: Cladding A ‘Concern’ Greater Manchester’s Mayor Andy Burnham Confirms

 Burnham, who has faced anger during his time as mayor for cuts to the fire service in order to save millions of pounds, was subjected to further criticism by the FBU’s North West executive council member Les Skarratts, who called for an end to senseless cuts”. 

Skarratts said: “Firefighters on the ground have worked tirelessly to contain the fire and rescue residents. There will clearly be some hard lessons to learn as the circumstances become clearer in the coming days.

“Greater Manchester has lost more than 600 firefighters since 2010 alone and, alarmingly, Andy Burnham is trying to cut another six fire engines, including one in Bolton. 

“We need to stop the senseless cuts to our fire and rescue service before we see another awful incident like this.”

In September, Burnham made a u-turn on a series of proposed cuts, including plans to cut the number of crew aboard a fire engine from five to four, the Manchester Evening News reported. 

Six fire stations in the Greater Manchester Area will be closed, whilst three new ones will be opened, after bosses were told to cut spending by £12.8m over three years. 

Bolton North and Bolton Central were two of the stations to be axed. 

More than 40 fire engines attended the scene in Bolton on Friday night, with several crews remaining on the scene tackling “hotspots” within the building on Saturday morning. 

Greater Manchester Deputy Mayor for Policing, Crime, Criminal Justice and Fire Beverley Hughes said some of the firefighters involved in battling the blaze in Bolton on Friday had been through Grenfell-inspired training just one day before.

She said: “The learning from Grenfell has paid dividends. Some of the firefighters had training the day before, particularly around evacuation.”

Hughes also praised the response from the emergency services and lauded two student ambassadors, named only as Kate and Jade, who knocked on doors in The Cube to alert students to evacuate.