Union anger over fire centre cost

The centre will not open until the end of 2009

Union leaders have said a new fire control centre for the East Midlands is costing £1.2m a year in rent even though it will not open until 2009.

The new regional control centre at Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, is expected to become operational in October 2009.

Paul St Clair, director of the centre, said the rental charges which began in January would be government funded.

He said the centre would give an improved service to the East Midlands.

'Money pit'

The facility is one of the government's nine planned regional control centres for England.

The Fire Brigades Union has already opposed the cost of the plans and said they could lead to a reduction in service.

General secretary Matt Wrack said: "Frontline fire stations and firefighters are being threatened with cuts while this project soaks up hundreds of millions of pounds.

"The money could be spent on frontline fire services but is instead being diverted into this money pit of a project."

'Improved service'

However Mr St Clair the new technology in the East Midlands centre would allow firefighters to tackle incidents more efficiently.

"They'll give an improved level of service to the public through the use of this sort of technology where we can identify the caller's telephone number, the address and we'll even be able to get mapping details of where the locations are that will be sent directly to the fire appliance for the front line firefighters to use.

"We'll have greater reliability when we have large scale incidents and maybe even terrorism, we'll be able to respond regularly and consistently to those," he said.

It will replace five separate call centres in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.