Fire station closures in 2026: what is proposed and what has been decided.

How to read this tracker

This page exists because fire station proposals generate a lot of headlines and not always a lot of clarity. A proposal is not a decision. Most begin as options published by a service's senior officers, go to a public consultation, and are then decided by elected members of a fire authority, a county council or a commissioner. The outcome can differ sharply from the first version: in 2026 Dorset & Wiltshire's authority agreed to keep all eight stations it had consulted on closing, subject to conditions, and Kent & Medway's authority voted down its own service's package by 17 votes to two.

We only list a proposal here once we have opened a source that confirms it, and we describe it as the source does. That means the tracker is deliberately incomplete. If your service is not listed, that does not mean it has no proposals; it means we have not verified one. Where a status depends on a later event, such as a funding decision in February 2027, we say so and give the date the source gives.

Why services say they are proposing changes

The reasons below are the ones services and authorities have stated. Dorset & Wiltshire pointed to its funding position after the government's finance settlement. Hampshire & Isle of Wight said its central government funding was expected to fall by £2.9 million over three years. Kent and Buckinghamshire & Milton Keynes emphasised on-call fire engines that could not be reliably crewed, especially during weekday daytime hours, and argued for moving resources to where cover is dependable. These are stated positions.

Unions and campaigners see it differently. The Fire Brigades Union has said that fewer firefighters and engines mean slower response times, and it put members on an industrial footing to oppose proposals in Dorset & Wiltshire. We report both perspectives and take no side: the consultation documents and committee papers are where the numbers, such as response-time modelling and savings, are set out, and we encourage you to read them.

What a closure or an engine removal can mean for firefighters

The effect on staff depends on the station, the duty system and the service's workforce plan. On-call staff based at a closed station may be offered a move to a neighbouring station or may lose their role, and the numbers quoted in press stories are often the maximum an original proposal could affect. Wholetime staff can be redeployed if an engine is removed. Several services have said they want to avoid compulsory redundancies. National pay rates, including the NJC rates effective 1 July 2026, do not change because a station closes, but local duty arrangements, travel and overtime can, and on-call earnings depend on retainer and call-outs. Our guide sets out pay, pension and transfer questions in more detail.

How to check your own station

Search your fire and rescue service's website for consultations, and open the fire authority's committee papers, which show the recommendation, the financial case and the vote. Check the date on every page and compare it with today's date, because a page written before a decision may still be online. Local council websites publish agendas and minutes if your service is run by a county council or commissioner. Then read the community risk management plan, which explains how the service assesses local risk and how it intends to deploy resources.

If a consultation is open, respond before it closes and say why the station matters. Responses are analysed by the service or an independent organisation and reported to members, so specific local knowledge, such as travel times, local risks and availability of crews, is more useful than a general objection or endorsement. Attending the decision meeting or watching it online lets you see how the discussion goes.

How consultations and decisions work

The usual path is: officers develop options; members decide whether to consult; a consultation runs for several weeks with meetings and a survey; officers report back, sometimes with revised recommendations; and members vote. Staff are consulted separately with their representatives about workforce effects. Members are not bound to follow officer recommendations, as the Kent vote shows, and the final decision can carry conditions, as in Dorset & Wiltshire. Every service is different, so read the process described on your own service's page.

For a wider picture of on-call pressures, which sit behind many of the 2026 proposals, see our guide to the National Fire Chiefs Council's on-call research study, published on 8 May 2026. If you are considering joining an on-call station, our guide to how to become an on-call firefighter explains selection, training and the commitment involved.

What is not in this tracker

We have left out claims we could not verify, including how far any single cost, such as pay awards or employer National Insurance changes, explains a particular authority's shortfall, and the current status of any proposal we could only find in undated or unattributed sources. If you know of a proposal that should be listed, send us the source and we will check it. We would rather have a shorter accurate table than a longer uncertain one.