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A new £1.4billion fire emergency response control system designed to deal with major incidents such as a terrorist attack at the 2012 Olympics will not be operational until after the Games, it is feared.
The system was intended to provide the fire service with the latest technology to deal with a major disaster such as a 7/7 type bombing or a major flooding.
It was planned to be up and running at least a year before the Games to allow problems to be ironed out but a leaked memo says it could be delayed until after 2012. Fire service unions say its control room will now be left "isolated and out of the network until after the Games take place".
Fire Brigade Union general secretary Matt Wrack said: "Fire services need the entire national network to be bedded down and tested by summer 2011 and that will not happen."
However, a spokesman for the Department of Communities and Local Government said: "We are confident that Fire Control system can be delivered and as with any project of this size it is right and proper for there to be contingency plans put in place."
Reader views (6)
It's all about cutting jobs. The government want less people in an already over stretched fire service. This is not the only issue currently in the fire sevice, but the government work on what statistics that want to invent.
- Dave, London
Nobody in the UK Fire Service wants this white elephant. It was dreamt up by civil servants who know absolutely nothing about how the fire service works and operates.
We already have a professional, efficient and very well managed system of controls set up to cover the entire UK.
Once again, the public is being conned by faceless bureaucrats who are accountable to nobody but other faceless bureaucrats and the consultants who are bleeding us dry!
Bin this useless project before its too late
- Tony Cavanagh, Liverpool Merseyside
with regards to Mo Ali's
comment above .
This a Government project and applies to all fire service's (brigade's).
- Ray, chatteris
This isn't the fault of the fire authorities it's purely another government mess.
Government has forced this on all fire authorities. The fire brigades don't want it, the firefighters don't want it, and the control staff don't want it and the government have decided not to listen to anyone as usual.
This is a massive cost to the tax payer and an unnecessary one that has run wildly over budget and will probably work no better than what we have now.
Bring on the next general election so we can releave these idiots from power so we can stop wasting public money.
- Steve, Birmingham
Why are the London fire Brigade wasting taxpayers money on replacing a Control room was only opened 6 years ago at a cost of £5million.
Add this together with the £25 million wasted on the Firehouse project at Southwark training centre and a picture of financial incompetence by the leaders of the Fire Authority is obvious.
- Mo Ali, Harrow,England
Yet another deadline missed under this incompetent government. How many more to come?
- Dave Davies, Basingstoke, Hants
