Emergency service chiefs have been criticised for “wasting public money” after it emerged almost £1.5 million was spent maintaining abandoned London fire stations that were closed down in budget cuts.
Ten stations across the capital were shut in 2014 — with the loss of 552 firefighters — including Britain’s oldest operational fire station in Clerkenwell, which dated from the 1870s.
Previous Mayor Boris Johnson overruled his own fire authority to push through the cuts, and stations were put up for sale in a bid to save nearly £29 million.
But while a study found callout response times suffered in areas affected by closures, it has also emerged that fire officials signed off large payments to maintain mothballed stations.
Eight were later sold for a combined total of almost £55 million, while two are still on the market.
The most, nearly £227,000, was spent maintaining Westminster, which was subsequently sold for £9.6 million.
More than £170,000 was paid out for security, maintenance, cleaning and keeping the lights on at Belsize in Camden, which was sold for £7.8 million.
Kingsland in Hackney sold for £16 million, the highest amount of any of the former fire stations, and had more than £120,000 spent on its upkeep while on the market.
The site will be turned into a primary-age free school, with plans to also have 69 flats in a tower block up to 11 storeys high.
Woolwich sold for the least, £760,000, with more than £93,000 spent while it was mothballed.
The other sold stations were Bow, Downham, Knightsbridge, Silvertown and Woolwich. Clerkenwell and Southwark are still unsold, and have seen nearly £490,000 spent on them while they await bids.
The costs were revealed in an answer from Mayor Sadiq Khan to Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon.
Mr Khan said that the expenditure was “more than covered when set against the disposal proceeds”, but Ms Pidgeon said: “This waste of public money is a further insult to everyone who fought against the closure of these stations.”
A London Fire Brigade spokesman said the cost of security, to avoid squatting and other problems, was “more than offset once a fire station has been sold”.
Fire Brigade commissioner Ron Dobson has refused to rule out further station closures.
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