Unions slam ‘costly’ fire control centres

Dec 31 2008 by Katie Campling, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

NEW fire control centres have been slammed by union leaders.

They say they are more expensive to run, are behind schedule and will cost fire workers their jobs.

The Government plans to merge 46 fire control rooms across the UK into nine super control centres.

In Yorkshire, the existing Birkenshaw, Sheffield, Hessle and Northallerton control rooms will be amalgamated and replaced with a main regional centre at Paragon Business Village in Wakefield.

The Department of Communities and Local Government said last month that the start of the amalgamation would be delayed by nine months and the final completion date by five months.

The Wakefield centre will ‘go live’ from autumn 2011. It is expected that all the centres will be operational by spring 2012.

The Fire Brigade Union claims the delays could cost £1m a month across the country.

FBU general secretary Matt Wrack said: “The Government is prepared to spend that sum on empty buildings. If this happened in business, someone would be held accountable.”

FBU regional secretary Ian Murray said the Wakefield centre’s running costs could be more than the current set-up.

“It was supposed to be designed to deliver savings. But the current running cost of the four control rooms is £5.9m compared with an estimated annual running cost of £7.1m for the new centre. We will be paying £1.2m more for a service which is not as good.”