Published: 11 August 2005
Controlling Fire & Rescue Services
Plans to set up a new national network of control centres for the Fire and Rescue Service have come one step closer with the naming of the first seven locations.
The control centre network is part of the Government's 'investment in modernising the Fire and Rescue Service to equip it for the demands of the 21st century'.
Nine control centres will replace the existing 46 local fire service control rooms across the country.
The locations of the seven named sites are:
- Belmont Business Park, Durham
- Lingley Mere Business Park, Great Sankey, Warrington, Cheshire
- Cambridge Research Park, Cambridge
- Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, Leicestershire
- Wolverhampton Business Park, Wolverhampton
- Paragon Business Village, Wakefield, West Yorkshire
- Blackbrook Business Park, Taunton, Somerset.
Discussions with developers are being finalised in the South East and it is hoped to make an announcement shortly on the location of the South East centre.
London already has a regional control centre which will be integrated into the national network in time for the Olympics in 2012.
The FiReControl project - the move to regional control centres - is the result of an independent review of fire and rescue control rooms by Mott MacDonald, which concluded that current arrangements are costly & inefficient.
(But then so are many public services, when looked at only from an accountant's viewpoint. This same attitude has seen the closure of many 'local' hospitals in favour of fewer regional super-hospitals, which result in patients and their relatives having to make long & costly journeys).
The new Fire and Rescue Control Centres will evidently be the result of over a year of intensive research & planning and we are told that
'Every part of the buildings has been designed to meet fire control needs and to provide staff with a high quality, secure and attractive place to work'.
The announcement was made by ODPM Minister Jim Fitzpatrick MP, who has responsibility for Fire, saying:
"There is a compelling need to modernise and rationalise the control rooms in England, as part of the overall modernisation agenda. In the post-9/11 world, and in the wake of the events of 7th July, we need control centres that are resilient enough to deal with a terrorist attack or any natural disaster.
London's experience on the 7th July showed that only a regional control centre can deal effectively with an event of that scale particularly in terms of the specialist management required for inter-agency liaison and on-going communications to synchronise plans and deployment when the Fire and Rescue service is not the prime service on the scene.
While existing control rooms do a good job, they are not designed to deal in a co-ordinated way with major regional or national incidents - they need improvement and investment.
The new national network will provide the Fire and Rescue Service with a modern, effective system that will better protect the public.
The centres will use the latest proven technology which will not only enable firefighters to respond more quickly to incidents but improve their safety by providing accurate information before they reach the scene.
The network will deliver a service that is resilient and capable of responding to anything from a small house fire to a large scale national emergency. It will also be much more efficient, which will free up resources for other Fire and Rescue Service work, such as fire prevention."
The Minister claims that all sites were selected taking into account factors such as:
- accessibility (for both people and services),
- demographics,
- vulnerability to threats such as flooding and
- suitability for development.
Mr Fitzpatrick, himself a former firefighter, said:
"We recognise that establishing the new network will inevitably result in change for staff. We are working very closely with the national employers so that staff are treated well, and will continue to work hard to keep staff informed of developments as they happen.
As it is for the Fire and Rescue Service, public safety is our priority.
We will work with them and other stakeholders to take this important project forward. This is all about improving public safety and improving the Fire and Rescue Service."
The FBU, however, has expressed its anger at the move, claiming that it will damage London's ability to respond to terrorism.
Ruth Winters, president of the Fire Brigades Union said:
"The truth is that you cannot respond better to major attacks by having 380 people fewer to respond.
The truth is that the government proposal to create nine new call fire control centres in England to replace the existing 46, using untested technology, at a cost of £1 billion including consultancy fees of £44 million, will make us less able to respond to terrorist outrages.
London has one fire brigade.
All the successes of June 7 were based upon one brigade liaising with one police service and the other services, and the fact that the staff at the control centres are used to London.
Yet the government wants to introduce huge multi-Brigade controls, with fewer people and roomfuls of glossy, expensive but untried technology.
To depend on technology instead of depending on people is folly. It is madness to suggest that meeting the terrorist threat for the fire service would be enhanced by introducing multi-Brigade controls."
In some cases,
work on the new sites will
begin within six months.
Work is currently underway to procure the infrastructure that will provide state-of-the-art technology for the new control centres and the new national network is supposed to be fully operational
by 2009.
Further information
ODPM website - FiReControl project
FiReControl website
National Framework for the Fire and Rescue Service
Mott MacDonald report - Full version and - Executive summary
FBU view and in more detail HERE
FBU campaign website
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