Emergency Services in the Liverpool City region

[aek-94]

Plans for Merseyside’s combined 999 call centre given government go-ahead
March 2, 2012

MERSEYSIDE’S plans for a single fire, police and ambulance centre to answer all emergency 999 calls were given the go-ahead.

The scheme – the final nail in the coffin for disastrous proposals for a region-wide fire command centre in Warrington – was awarded £1.8m of government funding.

Opening in 2014, it will have three separate control rooms and new call handling systems to improve the identification of locations of callers and “replace its outdated processors in fire stations”.

Bob Neill, the fire minister, said the plan had passed the tests of delivering improvements to “resilience, efficiency and technology”.

He said: “The government is adopting a more localist approach to help secure improvements in national resilience, rather than trying to impose a forced regionalisation of the fire service.

“These locally-led bids show we can strengthen national resilience and adopt new technology to save lives, without top-down Whitehall micro-management.”

Merseyside fire authority has yet to decide where the centre will be, saying a number of existing buildings in Liverpool were still under consideration.

The decision will rest on confirmation that North West ambulance service will join Merseyside police and the fire authority under the same roof.

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[Howie_P]

www.communityguardians.co.uk

[nicksanderson]

The Joint Command centre (as it's been re-christened) has been given the go-ahead by the Police and Fire aurthorities.

It's going to be a substantial extension of the MFRS headquarters in Bootle and is expected to be finshed autumn 2013 so it won't be long before there's contractors on site:

http://www.merseyfire.gov.uk/aspx/pa...il.aspx?id=421