AN urgent recruitment drive must be put in place before fire cover in the New Forest and Hampshire reaches breaking point.

Hampshire Fire Authority is being pressed to recruit extra officers and firefighters in the next financial year to halt what is fast becoming a growing operational crisis.

In 1997 11 flexible duty officer posts were axed in the county but a recent survey revealed the service was cracking under the pressure of an increased workload and fewer staff. The survey also showed most officers were feeling under pressure, with some taking leave through stress-related illness.

A report by the chief fire officer admitted there was currently an insufficient number of flexible duty officers to provide cover for each retained fire station.

"Since May 2001 records have been kept of additional hours worked by officers. These indicate that station officers would work on average an extra 97 hours per annum, assistant divisional officers an extra 48 hours and divisional officers 100 hours," the report states.

"This equates to three flexible duty officer posts. There is no provision for payment of overtime and so the only alternative is to take time off in lieu. This adversely affects operational fire cover and creates difficulties in officers being able to take the additional time back they have worked."

And it is not just at senior officer level where workload and staffing levels have been stretched. A separate report has revealed it is increasingly difficult to achieve standard crewing for whole time shift-crewed fire stations. There has also been an increase in staff at this level taking time off through stress-related illness.

In theory the service should be able to provide standard crewing on 100 per cent of occasions - last year it only achieved 65 per cent, the fourth lowest in the UK.

To halt this growing staffing level crisis recommendations are being put forward to appoint four flexible duty system divisional officers and that six 42-hour station officer posts be regraded to the flexible duty system. And at crew level an increase of 16 firefighter posts over the next two years.

These recommendations will be put to Hampshire Fire Authority on December 5.