London Fire Brigade has only managed to keep its full fleet of fire engines available for 5% of shifts during the last year.

That’s according to Norbiton based Fire Brigades’ Union which has released the figures.

It says the last time that every Brigade fire engine was available was September the 30th.

The FBU is calling on the London Mayor and London Fire Commissioner to prioritise frontline funding in the upcoming fire service budget.

A spokesperson for London Fire Brigade said: “On any given day, we will have fire engines off the run for any number of reasons, including regular maintenance, repair, community events and operational training.

“Protecting London and Londoners is our most important role, and to ensure we are able to do so, we use daily duty officer briefings supported by weekly strategic forecasting meetings to match our resources to the demands of the city on a daily basis.

“By using this weekly strategic forecasting system , the Brigade continues to meet its attendance targets of the first fire engine to an incident within a London-wide average of six minutes and a second fire engine to an incident within eight minutes.”