SLAITHWAITE fire station is to lose its full-time crew.

Fire chiefs say the station is probably the quietest fully-manned station in West Yorkshire and does not justify having firefighters there 24 hours a day all year round.

In the summer they publicised their plan to make the station a part-time one and yesterday a meeting of the West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority made the final decision.

This means Slaithwaite will be staffed by people who live or work within a mile of the station.

These part-time firefighters - known as retained - will have to get to the station, change, get on the fire engine and be responding to an incident within five minutes.

Although fire chiefs looked at fire cover all up the Colne Valley, they have decided to keep the retained stations at Meltham and Marsden.

They are contemplating revamping the Marsden station or possibly even building a new one.

A report to the meeting said the three stations were very close "and in perfect conditions the travel time from one area to another is not extensive."

But it went on: "Looking at the Colne Valley as a whole, the undulating terrain and poor condition of the road network makes travel, especially in a heavy goods vehicle, difficult and, in adverse weather, tortuous."

The report said 24-hour staffing at Slaithwaite was "inefficient and uneconomical". It concluded: "Staffing of this station should be provided using a retained system."

It says the full-time firefighters will be redeployed to busier stations or into community fire safety work.

Colne Valley MP Kali Mountford said: "This decision will leave my constituency without a full-time fire station.

"Several large factories, plus other high-risk buildings, will no longer have local cover from full-time firefighters.

"Given the geography of the area and the weather that can prevail in winter, I'm extremely disappointed it has been given such a low status."

West Yorkshire Fire Brigades' Union spokesman Sean Cahill said the Slaithwaite fire engine was called out far more times than showed up on the statistics.

He added: "Slaithwaite firefighters back Huddersfield crews up all the time, but it does not show in the figures."

* Batley is to lose one of its two fire engines. Fire chiefs said there was enough back-up from Cleckheaton, Morley and Dewsbury fire stations.