Fire bosses are to boost night-time emergency cover in Winchester with the addition of an extra engine and crew at North Walls fire station.

It is hoped the measure will improve the service's response times. The additional tender will be manned by a crew from Redbridge, Southampton, between 6pm and 11pm-identified by the brigade as a peak time-and will provide back-up for the two fire-engines and special equipment unit already based in the city.

The move, which will be on trial for six months, follows a review by the fire service assessing how to make best use of existing resources and to achieve a target of attending 80% of emergency incidents within eight minutes.

A spokesman said: "We are constantly looking at the speed of our response across all our stations in Hampshire and asking are we doing all we can? We can improve our response times this way without having to ask for more money in order to provide a better service."

The spokesman added that, even between 6pm and 11pm, the target was being achieved, but "not as consistently as we'd like".

He explained that Winchester fire station was manned by retained fire crews between 6pm and 11pm. They travel from home to the station when a call comes in, creating at least a four-minute time delay before the engines set off.

Coupled with the problems of increased traffic on the roads at that time, the spokesman said that could potentially create a critical delay.

The additional support from Southampton will mean the Redbridge crew will be the first on the scene, followed by the retained firefighters.

The spokesman denied the move had been made because the Winchester district had been struggling without sufficient cover. "This is a way of providing additional cover for a short period, making the best of the resources we have got. There isn't the work load to justify four fulltime watches at Winchester," he said.

The closure of retained Twyford station, near Winchester, under government plans was greeted with anger in 2000 by campaigners who said people and property would be put at risk because fire crews wouldn't get to incidents on time.