Fire crews slam NW 999 call centre idea (From Warrington Guardian)

Fire crews slam NW 999 call centre idea

Warrington firefighters have slammed plans to reduce the number of emergency fire control rooms in the UK.

Staff at Cheshire Fire Service's Winsford headquarters currently deal with 999 calls made from Warrington.

But if the Government goes ahead with its scheme to create just nine regional control centres, residents would be put through to a base dealing with the whole of the north west.

Dave Carruthers, Fire Brigade Union representative at Warrington Fire Station, said: "It is absolutely ridiculous.

"We don't know where the centre would be but if, for example, somebody living in a village in Cumbria, speaking in a dialect, has to call a control room in Manchester, the staff in that control room are not necessarily going to have the knowledge of the area they are dealing with.

"Also, if something goes wrong at one big centre there is less support. It just seems to be a case of providing worse conditions to save money.

He added: "There have been well-publicised problems with a number of other control centres including air traffic, police, ambulance and the national coastguard's 19 control centres.

"Unlike some of those there has never been a national or widespread catastrophic collapse of emergency fire controls because they are built to be resilient and back each other up."

The Government's 2005/06 Fire and Rescue National Framework document states that the location of the new centres are due to be announced in February/March 2005 with the aim of delivering the project by 2008.

Dave said: "I would urge readers to write to their local MPs and speak out against these plans to break up the fire service and 'regionalise' fire control rooms.

"It is our communities that will end up paying the price of this folly."