PLANS to shut at least 13 Essex Police and fire stations will be set in motion, if a pilot in Tiptree is successful.

A public meeting in the village heard emergency services chiefs were using their plan to move police officers to the fire station in Church Road as a cost-cutting experiment.

If police are able to work efficiently alongside firefighters, bosses will look to save millions of pounds by sharing other buildings and selling off stations which become surplus to requirements.

A shortlist of 13 areas has been drawn up and more could follow, but details of locations are not being released.

In some cases, firefighters could move into police stations instead of the other way around.

Deputy chief fire officer Adam Eckley said the plans would help ensure both the police and fire service were able to maintain a presence in all the communities they served.

He said: “With the Government looking to cut public spending, we are conducting a fundamental service review and there may be some locations where we suggest we might not want a fire station.

“That’s something we would have to put to the fire authority in November, but schemes like this are a way of cutting costs without affecting the overall number of stations.”

Only six members of the public attended the public meeting on the plans at St Luke’s Church extension, with concerns raised it had been poorly publicised.

One resident, John Stannard, questioned if the ten-room police station might be needed in the future in light of the village’s expanding population.

He said: “Tiptree is growing all the time and we now have 4,000 people. I hope we might be getting more officers, so will there be room for them at the fire station?”

Chief Supt Alison Newcomb, Essex Police’s eastern division commander, said there was no plan to add to the team of ten officers currently based in Tiptree. She said it was possible the fire station might turn out to be too small and there may be problems with confidentiality, as police would have to keep private information about crimes out of sight.

However, she said the proposed three-month trial of the scheme from July 16 was designed to find out whether or not it could work effectively.

The fire station will not be open to the public under the plans, but it will not affect the amount of time officers are available to speak in person to residents.

Currently, the police station only opens on Saturday afternoons and officers will now be manning a desk at Tiptree Library between 11am and 1pm every Saturday.