An Oldham firefighter has said "inconsiderate parking" is impacting the fire service’s ability to keep the community safe.

It comes after the council shared a photograph of "poorly parked" cars at a junction in Chadderton, meaning the council’s bin lorry couldn’t get through.

Firefighter Aaron Lee said that double parked cars can have a "massive impact" on response times, with poorly parked cars having affected response times.

Aaron said he has been down streets where "you wouldn’t get any emergency vehicles down" due to the state of the car parking.

The Chadderton-born firefighter said: “I’m stationed at Oldham on Lees Road, and particular certain areas, there’s quite a lot of streets, particularly around Glodwick where you have these terraced houses and they’re double parked.

“It is a regular problem we come across, especially as driver it’s a bit of a nightmare really.”

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Aaron said that a firefighter’s first priority is to respond as quickly and as safely as they can.

The 37-year-old added: “It genuinely can be a life or death situation, especially in the more serious incidents like house fires.

“If we turn on to a street and we can’t get the truck down far enough we’re in trouble, because ultimately we’d have to get off the pump and take the kit down ourselves, I just don’t think people sometimes appreciate that.

“Heaven forbid, we hope that it never happens to them, but you can take it for granted.

“From a fire service point of view all we’re asking when you park up is to ask that question ‘could you get a fire engine down here’. If the answer’s no then it might be worth moving it.”

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“From a fire service point of view all we’re asking when you park up is to ask that question ‘could you get a fire engine down here’. If the answer’s no then it might be worth moving it.”

Aaron wants to see more done to educate drivers. He said, however, that he would consider driving through parked cars as a last resort in order to save lives, while trying to cause minimal damage.

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He added: “We don’t want to punish anyone, it’s more so about educating people. People might not be aware of the implications of what they’re doing, I guess.

“As a fire appliance driver, our aim is to respond as safely and in the fastest possible time to get to emergencies.

"We appreciate people want to park outside their houses, I get that completely in terms of convenience, but just asking yourself that question when you park your car, it could save lives, as dramatic as that sounds.

“If we can get trucks down as fast as possible without squeezing through tiny gaps, it improves our response time.

“Our ultimate aim as a fire service is to keep our community safe and inconsiderate parking really does impact on our ability to do that.”

Inconsiderate parking has been a bugbear for Oldhamers for months.

As part of the consultation for the subsequently-scrapped Chadderton and Westwood Active neighbourhood, which would have changed road rules to stop "cut-through" routes, 54 respondents used the "additional comments" section to raise their concerns about pavement parking in the area.

One person responded to the consultation: “The biggest problem in my area is the pavement parking which is a problem in most areas outside London.”

Pavement parking has been banned in the whole of the Greater London region since 1974, with some case-by-case exceptions.

A report commissioned by the council and authored by QaResearch, released after a Freedom of Information Act, concluded that the council should consider implementing measures such as a residents’ parking scheme in the area.