A whole-time crew is set to cover the station 24 hours a day from Thursday and will replace the current retained crew in the hope of increasing response times to incidents.

The change, decided last November, means Bracknell’s station will become a ‘satellite’ station, where the Ascot crew will travel from at the beginning of their shift – it also means there will now be a full crew on hand in all Bracknell, Ascot and Wokingham stations.

Colin Dudley, chairman of the Royal Berkshire Fire Authority, said it is ‘fantastic news’ for residents in the area.

“It’s really fantastic news – with retained crews you need to give them some time to get to the station when their beeper goes off but if the crew is ready then response times are much quicker.

“It has always been safe and all of our crews are trained to the same high standard – if you saw a retained crew at a fire you would not notice any difference with a whole-time crew.” Retained firefighters are residents who volunteer to respond to incidents when called by a beeper which they have with them all the time – they must live within a 10-minute radius of the station, making recruitment tricky.

The need for a whole-time crew became evident over the past year, Mr Dudley says, as more and more cover was needed to make up the crew at Ascot with recruitment and retention of retained fire fighters proving increasingly difficult.

“That couldn’t continue indefinitely, we knew we had to do something as we were having to provide a cover crew to make up the team at Ascot so we looked into the options across the county and now we have a scheme similar to what has just opened this month in Windsor,” Mr Dudley said.

The Tinkers Lane station in Windsor will also be a satellite station and will deploy crews to cover Slough 24 hours a day.

The set-up of fire cover in Berkshire has been overhauled a number of times over the past few years – with the latest decision ending several years of consultations and proposals.