Liz Leffman, Prospective MP for Meon Valley, is pushing to protect Meon Valley's part-time 'retained' fire-fighters from a threat to their working hours.

Retained fire-fighters usually have full-time jobs outside the fire service. As a second job, they spend up to 120 hours per week "on-call" - in their own homes or at their regular workplaces, but there if we need them in emergencies.

An EU law limits working hours to 48 per week - and this includes the time retained fire-fighters spend on call. If this law is enforced in full, fire stations across the Meon Valley will have to offer reduced services.  All of the fire stations in the Meon Valley constituency (Horndean, Wickham, Bishops Waltham, Waterlooville and Droxford) are manned by retained fire-fighters.

The Liberal Democrats are campaigning to keep this opt out for our fire-fighters.  Liz Leffman has launched this campaign website for residents to show their support for our fire-fighters.

“Our highly trained retained firefighters do a fantastic job.  We need to make sure they can continue their essential work,” said Liz Leffman.

"Please sign our petition below to show the government how strongly we support our fire-fighters. They must keep the UK's voluntary opt out from the working time directive so we can keep our retained firefighters!"