Town councillors have raised concerns about proposed changes to Kenilworth's fire service which they have labelled as the "wrong way forward".

Warwickshire County Council (WCC) has revealed plans which could see six on-call fire stations - including Kenilworth's - stood down to be replaced with "surge teams".

The plan is to change work patterns to better cover higher-risk times and areas throughout the day rather than having extra resources at night when there is less demand. 

But speaking at last week's Kenilworth Town Council meeting, members were concerned the plans could leave the town without adequate cover.

"How do you reconcile this with the number of properties being built, the number of residents; those are all increased potential risks," said Cllr David Bailey. 

"I struggle to reconcile this."

Meanwhile, Cllr Alison Insley, a former on-call firefighter, said she thinks the plans are "the wrong way forward", insisting the new set-up could increase response times.

"I wonder whether we should, as a town council, write to the people at the county council who are making the decisions to say that we have heard the proposals and we are concerned about the reduction in service based in Kenilworth," added Cllr Kate Dickson.

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Part of the proposals is to turn on-call stations at Bidford-on-Avon, Henley, Kenilworth, Shipston-on-Stour, Fenny Compton and Polesworth into surge stations, which the council's report describes as teams that will be "available for recall in the event of significant incidents or periods of high demand".

Full-time firefighters have been supplemented by on-call services for many years - local people who live within five minutes of their fire station and come forward to launch a response when required. 

They volunteer to do so as a secondary job, being paid for their time, but the service wants to reconfigure how staffing across the board works in line with need and dropping volunteer availability. 

The plans are expected to go to public consultation this month.

The town council is also set to ask for a briefing on the plans from WCC.