FIREFIGHTERS across Manchester could be made to work a new 12-hour shift system as cuts to services have been agreed by bosses.

Staff from Leigh, Atherton and Hindley stations will be among more than 1,000 staff who will have to comply with the controversial new shift system from April next year.

This comes after Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service have had to make cuts of £14.8m over four years.

In a statement, Cllr David Acton, chairman of Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority, said: “Government cuts of £28million over the last six years have meant a reduction of over 400 firefighters from the front line in Greater Manchester as well as significant back office cuts.

“Currently Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Authority faces a further Government budget cut of £14.4million over the next four years.

“The scale of these Government cuts has left us with no alternative and no change is not an option.

“Our ultimate aim is simple - to ensure as many fire engines as possible are available when we have the most incidents and are able to get to people as quickly as we can.

“That remain our top priority.

“To achieve this we are already taking a third of the cuts from senior management and the back office, but we have developed a new shift duty system for firefighters which changes from a day shift of 10 and a half hours and a night shift of 13 and a half hours to two equal shifts of 12 hours.

“This system saves almost £10 million whilst retaining 32 more firefighter jobs on the frontline than would be possible by trying to maintain our current system, providing up to 56 fire engines to our communities when they need them the most.

“We consulted on this and received no alternatives which would save the amount of money we need to cut.

“We have not issued notices to anyone at this stage and have no intention to make anyone redundant.

“If we cannot agree on how we do this together we will have to implement it on April 1, 2017.”