Emergency services to share control room

COMMAND and control functions for the emergency services are to be overhauled as part of a £1.5m. project.

A tender has been published for a new computer system which will be used in a joint police, fire and ambulance control room. Once awarded, the contract will run for 10 years.

Home Department deputy chief officer Mark Lempriere (pictured), who is leading the project, said the final location for the new single control centre had yet to be decided, but he was 99% sure it would be in the police station.

'The tenders are out for the IT part. That will be the document management, the database and the command and control system itself. We will slot that into the building for the new control centre.'

Each of the services currently operates from a separate control room, but there are plans for them to move into a single, joint room by the end of next year.