The London Fire service will this week discuss three proposals designed to make savings of £8.1m in 2016/17.

On Wednesday, December 2, London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA) will see three proposals, all of which should avoid the need for compulsory redundancies in the service. 

The three proposals also ensure no fire stations will close.

One option is to permanently decommission 13 fire engines from 13 stations, all of which have been out of use since the summer of 2013.

The 13 fire stations that had one of their two fire engines removed in August 2013 were: Chelsea, Ealing, Erith, Forest Hill, Holloway, Old Kent Road, Plaistow, Poplar, Romford, Shoreditch, Stratford, Wandsworth and Willesden.

Another option would permanently get rid of 10 of the 13 engines.

Wandsworth, Willesden and Forest Hill stations would have an appliance returned once they were no longer needed for contingency purposes. 

Alternatively, chairman of LFEPA Resources Committee Andrew Dismore has recommended putting the 13 fire engines back into service but making savings by establishing alternate crewing at stations with some specialist appliances.

Alternate crewing means that in stations where there is a fire engine and a specialist appliance such as an aerial ladder platform there would be one crew for both appliances.

A report on the proposals also mentions the possibility of saving £1.7m by cutting the current budget reserved for the strike mandate - the fire fighter pension scheme.

London Fire Commissioner Ron Dobson said: "My priority when exploring how we can make these savings is to ensure we don’t compromise our service to Londoners and to avoid compulsory redundancies of firefighters.

"I have identified two possible ways of making these savings that mean we avoid compulsory redundancies for operational staff.

"We have managed without the 13 fire engines for over two years now and our response times have still remained well within our average attendance time targets.

"My preferred option would also see an increase in the number of staff available to crew our Fire Rescue Units.

"This will increase the capacity of our crews at complex incidents including terrorism, and improve firefighter skills as there will be more chance to rotate between pumping appliances and our specialist rescue units."

According to the service, targets of six minutes for a first fire engine and eight minutes for a second have still been hit across the city, while the 13 appliances have been out of service.

Last year the number of fires was below 20,000 for the first time since records for Greater London began in 1966 and fire deaths have steadily declined since the 1980s.

In 1987, there were 28.5 fire deaths per million residents compared to 3.4 per million in 2014.

The proposals will be discussed by the committee on December 2, and there will be a full public consultation from December 7.