Union leaders have blasted proposals to axe 200 frontline firefighters and maintain the move will put lives at risk.

Yesterday West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Authority gave the go-ahead for a 12-week consultation to cut staff and close stations across West Yorkshire with a final decision being made on the plans in December.

The success of fire prevention measures and cuts by central Government have been blamed for proposals including losing one of two fire engines at Fairweather Green , with the lost engine replaced by a Fire Response Unit (FRU), a smaller vehicle to deal with less serious fires.

Haworth station would be closed under and Shipley and Idle merged with a new station built at an “optimum location”.

But Dave Williams, the secretary of the Fire Brigade Union (FBU), said they were disappointed as they had asked the authority to delay the cuts as they did not know how much funding was being slashed by the Government. They fear 230 jobs going and Mr Williams said the consultation could just be a “paper exercise”.

He said: “Lives are being put at risk. The consultation is nothing short of a farce and the authority abdicates all responsibility by putting information on their website.”

Thornton and Allerton Councillor Valerie Binney , a representative for Bradford’s Tories on the authority, said the moves were a “step too far”.

West Yorkshire’s Chief Fire Officer Simon Pilling defended the plans and said he would be nervous at the thought of the radical plans if fire prevention had not been so successful, but did admit that response times in high-risk areas could increase by seven seconds with the changes.

In the last ten years firefighters have fitted one million smoke detectors in homes and inspected more than 35,000 industrial and commercial premises.

There will be forums, special interest groups, meetings with MPs, and neighbourhood forums, plus a hotline on (01274) 655717.

The consultation ends on November 30. For more information visit www.westyorksfire.gov.uk.