The councillor who oversaw Warwickshire's new fire service plans had to bite his tongue after a political rival revived the row on his return to Shire Hall. 

Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service is run by Warwickshire County Council, with changes to its operating model implemented last year. 

It proved divisive, with one of the biggest changes seeing many on-call crews scrapped due to decreasing availability, particularly during the day. 

Not only were some of those resources redeployed towards wholetime firefighters, but more were added alongside the retention of on-call in areas where availability was deemed to be sustainable. 

The plan also saw resources moved to areas where there is greater need in order to bring down average response times across the county. 

Part of the changes saw Bedworth's on-call provision, which had 19 percent availability during the day and 70 percent at night.

One of Nuneaton's two 24-hour crews was moved there instead. 

Irrespective of locations, crews can be on the move and cover wider areas.

When fully implemented, the changes are expected to shave more than a minute from the average response times in the borough of Nuneaton & Bedworth – seven minutes 32 seconds instead of the current eight minutes 34, better times than the rest of the county. 

However, Cllr Keith Kondakor, back four years after losing his county council seat, insists Nuneaton residents are not happy. 

Raising the matter during discussion of the council's annual scrutiny report, he said: "Unfortunately, it went to scrutiny around the time of the general election, making things more problematic in terms of speaking and representation. We should have scrutinised the Nuneaton changes a lot better.

"The consultation on the fire cuts didn't actually have a public meeting in Nuneaton, it was in Bedworth. The people of Nuneaton still feel really angry and it was a failure of scrutiny to actually look at that properly from the point of view of Nuneaton."

He also argued that Shire Hall's Warwick location had been a problem and suggested that meetings on such important matters should be taken to the towns, not only held at the council's headquarters. 

"Shire Hall being here is very accessible for people in south Warwickshire but we had no public speakers at scrutiny about the fire cuts other than myself, and I wasn't allowed to speak (because he was standing in the general election at the time)," he added.

"We need to recognise that deficiency, and when we have things coming to scrutiny that massively affect one town in particular, we should have a scrutiny meeting in that town or make arrangements. We are still angry about it and we need this thing changed."

Cllr Andy Crump, the portfolio holder – political lead – on fire and rescue at the time, was livid.

He pointed to the permanent increase to the service's budget to accommodate changes that were made in response to concerns raised in the consultation. 

"I wasn't going to respond but I think we have a duty as councillors, whether you are new or an old one like me, to get our facts right," he said. 

"We went through the process of resourcing to risk. I went through all parts of the county, we did a massive consultation on this and we must remember that they are not cuts to Warwickshire Fire & Rescue – the budget is being increased by £614,000 per year, we are increasing wholetime firefighters by 30 and reducing response times in many parts of the county. 

"It is Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service, not Nuneaton Fire & Rescue Service. I am very disappointed that we are potentially questioning the integrity of Mr Brook (Ben Brook, Chief Fire Officer) who was the driver behind this. We must always remember the operational independence of the chief fire officer.

"Make sure we get our facts right when we are talking here. I will shut up now before I say something I regret but I am extremely annoyed." 

Cllr Crump's Conservative group is no longer in power but he probably hasn't heard the last of this. 

He will chair the resources, fire and rescue overview and scrutiny committee, the one that casts an eye over and makes recommendations on the fire service. 

The Green Party's sole representative on that panel? Cllr Kondakor.