A county council is to discuss options for its fire control room after the collapse of the government FireControl Project.
Cumbria County Council’s cabinet will consider a report which outlines options available for Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service’s fire call-handling and mobilising function.
FireControl would have seen a national network of nine regional fire control centres replacing 46 existing control rooms, in England. It collapsed at the end of 2010 after seven years of planning and at a cost of more than £420million.
Fire and rescue services in the north west – including Cumbria, Lancashire, Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Cheshire – have been looking at how they can work together to replace their control systems.
The Cumbria council report recommends that it becomes a full partner in a north west collaboration to provide a control room function. This would transfer fire 999 call handing and fire engine mobilisation, currently carried out by individual services to a local authority controlled company, NW Fire Control Ltd, based at a centre in Warrington starting in 2014.
The proposal has identified efficiency savings of £100,000 for 2011/12 and £160,000 in subsequent years for the authority.
Councillor Gary Strong, Cumbria County Council’s cabinet member for the fire and rescue service, said: “We believe collaboration across the north west would improve resilience and functionality, make the most of funding available by government and help achieve significant savings for all fire and rescue services.
"This kind of opportunity is something that every level of the public sector, including fire authorities, must consider.”
Cumbria will discuss its options on Thursday 15 September and make a decision. It will then wait until next month once all other fire authorities have had the chance to discuss the plans.
