I read with frustration and disappointment the misinformation that your reader P D Boobier wrote in last week’s edition that it could take 40 minutes for a Minehead fire crew to respond to a fire in Porlock.

The letter mentioned that being a retained fire station, meant the crews at Minehead would take 15-20 minutes to respond from a 999 call being received and our crews responding to their pagers from wherever they may be.

This is factually incorrect. Our crews must be within five minutes’ responding distance to the fire station to be on call.

Whilst both I and the local crew here at Minehead fully support the public’s determination and resilience at making their feelings known regarding the fire service’s current proposals, please ensure your facts are accurate and avoid using other stations detrimentally in the defence of others.

Incorrect information will not aid the campaign to save stations, neither will it fill other local residents, visitors or readers with confidence in their local fire stations and other emergency services if they think it takes so long to respond.

Both my team and I at Minehead fire station pride ourselves on not only our availability but also the speed at which both we and our colleagues at other fire stations respond to incidents.

Minehead’s first appliance is normally out of the station doors from pager activation to being mobile to an incident on many occasions in about four minutes, day or night, with the second appliance shortly afterwards if required.

A case in example was a recent road traffic collision we were mobilised to - from the time of call and pagers activating to the first appliance being mobile to the incident was 3 mins 45 secs, mid- afternoon on a working day.

Please take the opportunity if you haven’t done so already to take part in the public consultation and complete the questionnaire either online at dsfire.gov.uk or fill in a hard copy.

The next opportunity to get a hard copy and ask questions direct to service representatives will be at Minehead Library in Bancks Street on Thursday August 22 between 11am-3pm.

I welcome and encourage the support from every member of the public to voice their concerns and opinions at any aspect of our work, but please ensure you have accurate information when making such important public statements.

Chris Jones, Station Commander Minehead Fire Station.