A shortage of staff meant Surbiton fire station only stayed open with the help of emergency cover on Saturday night.

On one of the busiest nights of the week for emergency services the London Fire Brigades Union tweeted: "Staff shortages meant that nine London fire stations stayed open on Saturday night only thanks to emergency relief crews. The price of cuts."

It later confirmed Surbiton was one of those nine. It said a relief crew is one sent from another station to cover when there are shortages.

The union has been in discussions with the London Fire service on the subject of planned cuts.

London Fire Brigade director of operations Dave Brown said: "On Saturday night (February 6) Surbiton’s fire engine was unavailable due to an insufficient number of officers. This is an extremely rare occurrence and this was due to a combination of factors including, leave, sickness and training.

"We plan our fire cover on a strategic London-wide basis. When a fire engine is unavailable because they are at an incident, carrying out community safety work or off-station training fire cover is provided by neighbouring fire stations."

The London Fire service wants to make savings of £8.1m in 2016-17.