MARTIN DEMANDS RETHINK ON TRI-SERVICE PLANS.

4.46.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 23rd Oct 2007

Cheltenham MP Martin Horwood has joined fellow members of the prestigious Communities and Local Government Select Committee in criticising delays and overspend in the controversial FireControl project that is set to go over time and over budget while fire response times appear to be going up.

The Committee scrutinises the work of the Department for Communities and Local Government whose responsibilities include fire and rescue, housing and local and regional government. The committee was questioning senior officials over the department's performance for the last 12 months.

Committee members were shocked to see that response times to fires were going up, despite an overall reduction in deaths from fires. Martin quoted a National Audit Office report that showed 37% of calls being responded to within five minutes in 2005, compared to 46% in 2001. Officials responded by arguing that more emphasis on fire prevention was nevertheless reducing fire deaths overall.

But the government's report on the controversial FireControl plan to regionalise emergency fire response threw further doubt on the whole area of emergency fire response. Figures provided to the committee showed that the project was running two years late (projected to finish by 2011 not 2009 as planned) and massively over budget (final projected cost up more than 50% from £120,000 to £190,000).

Martin commented: "when the existing local Tri-Service model in Gloucestershire worked so well in the summer flooding emergency, when this project is going over budget and is years behind schedule and when overall response performance nationwide is dropping, it seems clear to me that the government needs to stop and give its plans a fundamental rethink. Maybe a localised response centre really is the best way to manage fire response after all."