A FIRE brigade is getting rid of the cooks who dish up food to its crews in a bid to save money.

The daytime cooks at seven of County Durham's 15 fire stations will lose their jobs at the end of next month.

One has already left the brigade, another will take retirement and the rest will be made redundant in the cost-cutting move by County Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Authority.

The brigade will also be ending the contract of the firm that provides catering at its Framwellgate Moor headquarters, in Durham City.

Once the axe has fallen, fire crews on day shift will have to cook their own meals in the station kitchen, although a brigade spokeswoman said that firefighters have had to cater for themselves at night, weekends and bank holidays for some time.

She said: "We have had a challenging year in terms of budget and this hasn't been an easy decision.

"We have to make savings and, regrettably, members of the fire authority had to take this very difficult decision."

She added: "The decision has been made in consultation with staff and the unions, and we did look to see if we could re-deploy the affected staff."

She said the move had caused sadness at the authority: "No one wants to see any member of staff go but everyone realises we have a challenging budget and everyone is working hard to continue providing a service within that budget," she said.

She gave an assurance, however, that "catering provided for firefighters at major incidents is not affected".

The main stations where the cooks will lose their jobs are Bishop Auckland, Seaham, High Handenhold, Peterlee, Newton Aycliffe, Darlington and Consett, along with brigade headquarters, which includes Durham City fire station.

The warning bells for impending budget cutbacks came in February when the authority approved its budget at £26.76m - £700,000 less than last year.

At the time, it promised that while frontline services would be maintained, efficiency savings would have to made from backroom operations.

No one from the GMB or FBU unions were available for comment yesterday.