Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 02/03/2012 09:16

Cornwall Council has welcomed the news that Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service has been awarded £1.8m by the Government to improve its fire control function.

The funding, which was announced by Fire Minister Bob Neill today, is part of a £74 million package of funding from the Government aimed at supporting fire and rescue services to improve the resilience and efficiency of their local control rooms. This follows the Government’s decision to terminate the Fire Control project which sought to regionalise fire control rooms across England.

Welcoming the funding Chief Fire Officer Des Tidbury said “This announcement is very good news for Cornwall. We know that the current control room is not fit for purpose and this funding will enable us to move forward with plans to co locate Fire Control, Lifeline Alarm, Public Realm CCTV and Command Centre functions in one place”.

“We will now be working with partners to develop a range of potential options, one of which would be creating a new purpose built centre in the Camborne, Pool, Redruth area”.

Cornwall Fire and rescue service operates its own call handling and mobilisation and also provides call handling and mobilisation functionality for the Isle of Scilly.

Lance Kennedy, the Council’s portfolio holder for Community Safety and Public Protection, said “These bids for funding were assessed on a quality basis and required not only a written business submission but personal presentations. I was pleased to sign a highly professional bid and represent Cornwall's interests at the Fire Forum and other places.

“This award and the recent Peer Review demonstrates the high quality of Cornwall's fire service on the front line, through all ranks, office staff and member support, a true team effort. We can now pursue our plans to improve emergency cover and develop a new control room with added confidence."