Opening delayed of fire super HQ

MANCHESTER’S fire control centre will close with the new Warrington base up and running in 2012 — months later than planned, Government has revealed.

The move is part of a restructuring which will see England’s 46 local control rooms replaced by nine regionalised centres.

The shake-up will close Manchester’s centre, which the Government believes, can no longer cope with modern emergencies on the scale of the London terror bombings.

All North-West emergency calls will be shifted to Warrington.

A new state-of-the-art control room — fielding calls from across the county, Cheshire, Cumbria, Lancashire, and Merseyside — was expected to be up and fully operational by 2011 but now is scheduled for spring 2012.

Ministers believe the new base will allow firefighters to respond more quickly to incidents.

Fire Minister Sadiq Khan told MPs: “The Government is investing £380m and remains strongly committed to it.

“Major emergencies in recent years have shown us the very real challenges we face in today’s world.

Earlier this year the Chronicle revealed that more than £55 million of taxpayers’ money is being spent on consultants working on plans to create the regional fire centres.