Councillor calls for more women to serve on fire authority

A councillor says more females should be appointed to the organisation that runs the fire service in Shropshire because women “think differently to men”.

Councillor Susan Coleman is the only Conservative politician left on Shropshire & Wrekin Fire Authority following the local election in May but she had her say at a meeting this week.

Councillor Coleman (Severn Valley) urged her colleagues to “try to get more women” on the authority.

“Women represent 51 per cent of the population and 54 per cent of the electorate and should be better represented,” the Shropshire councillor said.

“At the moment we have got 10 men and five women on the fire authority.”

Councillor Coleman was told that before the elections there was only one female elected member of the authority, the Telford Liberal Democrat Karen Blundell (Apley Castle) who remains.

Councillor David Minnery (Lib Dem, Market Drayton South), chairing the authority said that Shropshire, now run by the Lib Dems, chose three women representatives while the previous administration chose none.

The committee, which met at Telford Central Fire Station on Wednesday (July 23) was discussing whether to increase the number of councillors from 15 to 17 to increase effectiveness of the organisation.

Councillor Coleman said: “If we go up to 17 members I would like to see a few more women.

“Not just because of statistics but because women have a different response to things and life experience to men.”

Sam Burton, the Deputy Chief Fire Officer, said that 10.3 per cent of the fire service’s staff are women.

She said this is “low” but there is a greater percentage at senior level.

Councillor Minnery said: “We’re getting there. At the end of the day they have got to get themselves elected.”

He added that it also depended on whether the political associations “have the talent to select.

“It’s no use selecting somebody by rote, just because they happen to be male or female.”

Members supported increasing the size of the fire authority from 15 to 17 members.

They are also rejigging the committee structure to introduce better scrutiny, which was an issue raised in a hard-hitting inspection report at the end of 2024.

The new fire authority structure will take effect from October 1, 2025.