Fire crews in Hertfordshire may limit their night-time response to automated fire alarms at offices and shops, according to new proposals.

When an automated fire alarm is triggered at a shop or office building during the day (between 7am and 7pm), the Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service already require independent confirmation before responding.

And now the service has drawn up plans to take the same approach 24 hours a day – only responding to automated alarms from offices and shops if there has been further confirmation, from the premises or a passer-by.

According to the proposals, the vast majority of these automated calls – 99 per cent – are false alarms.

And by reducing the number of false alarms attended by crews, it will avoid delays to genuine calls or disruption to training or safety activities.

Proposals for a 12-month trial of the new approach were backed by a meeting of the county coucil's community safety and waste management cabinet panel last week - with a meeting of the cabinet scheduled this week to determine whether it should go ahead.

At the meeting it was reported to councillors that over the past three years, fire crews had attended 861 automated fire alarms at retail (513) or office premises (348).

But just seven of those incidents – that's less than one per cent of those – were actually fires.

Councillors were told that attending so many false alarms had a "major impact" on resources – making crews unavailable to attend genuine calls, as well as disrupting community fire safety activities and training.

And responding under emergency conditions created unnecessary risk to fire crews and members of the public.

Deputy chief fire officer Chris Bigland said similar approaches were already adopted by a number of Services in other parts of the country. And he said that – if agreed – the 12-month trial would start in 2021.

Labour councillor Joshua Bennett-Lovell raised concerns that the delay in attendance would mean any fire would be more developed and the risk to fire fighters would be greater.

And he said that ultimately the problem was that there were not enough firefighters or resources for them.

Conservative councillor Simon Bloxham – a former firefighter – also raised concerns about retail units with automated alarms that had flats above – and he called for a more 'risk-based' approach.

In response Mr Bigland stressed that the proposals would not change the response to automated alarms calls from residential and high-risk premises, including hospitals care homes, HMOs, hostels and schools.

And he said that where there was a residential space attached to retail or office premises fire crews would still automatically attend.

Backing the proposed trial, executive member for community safety and waste management councillor Terry Hone, said: "We looked at this in great detail. It is a trial. We want to see if it works.

"Officers assessed the risk to be absolutely minimal and also have put a lot in place to mitigate any risk whatsoever – particularly to residential properties."

A meeting of the county council's cabinet will decide whether – or not – the trial should go ahead at their meeting, today, Monday from 2pm.

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