• Boroughs & Fire stations
  • Headquarters
  • Mobilising and Communications Centre
  • Service Training Centre
• Current & Recent Incidents
• Equipment
• FiReControl & Firelink Information
  • FireControl Project
  • Firelink Project
  • News & Project updates
  • Project board & team
  • Common documentation
• Firefighter Risk information
• Firefighter Roles
• Fire Hydrants
• Old Friends Gathering
• Planning for Emergencies
• Station Open Days

FiReControl project

• Overview
• Background and related documents

Overview.

FiReControl - External Link is a Communities and Local Government (CLG) national project looking at the Fire & Rescue Service's existing mobilising and communications facilities.

The FiReControl project, initiate in 2003, is working to move from the existing system of 46 local control rooms in England into 9 new networked Regional Control Centres.

Currently the South East region is served by nine of the local control rooms covering over 8 million people in East Sussex, West Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Hampshire, Royal Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and the Isle of Wight.

The new Regional Control Centre for the South East Region is located at Kite's Croft Business Park, Fareham, Hampshire.

Project Background.

In 1999, following a request from the government, Mott MacDonald carried out a review of existing Fire & Rescue Service Control rooms and the service they provided.

A report of the findings was published in April 2000 and in December 2002 Sir George Bain undertook a further review of the Fire & Rescue Service.

Mott MacDonald updated their review in 2003 and the government published their White Paper "Our Fire & Rescue Service". The FiReControl project was initiated in early 2004 to start work on one of the recommendations which was to reduce the number of Fire & Rescue Service control rooms in England.

Instead of 46 control rooms there will be only 9 Regional Control Centres in the following locations -

• South East - Kites Croft Business Park, Fareham, Hampshire.
• North East - Belmont Business Park, Durham.
• North West - Lingley Mere Business Park, Great Sankey, Warrington, Cheshire.
• Yorkshire and Humberside - Paragon Business Village, Wakefield, West Yorkshire.
• East of England - Cambridge Research Park.
• East Midlands - Willow Farm Business Park, Castle Donington, Leicestershire.
• West Midlands - Wolverhampton Business Park.
• South West - Blackbrook Business Park, Taunton, Somerset.
• London - Merton industrial Estate, Morden

The following documents provide more detailed information -

• Vision & Scope for FiReControl [pdf, 92K, opens in new tab]
• Full Business Case [pdf, 268K, opens in new tab]
  • Questions & Answers [pdf, 88K, opens in new tab]
  • Executive Summary [pdf, 60K, opens in new tab]
  • Appendices [pdf, 1.5M, opens in new tab]
• Concept of Operations [pdf, 199K, opens in new tab]
• FireControl Glossary [pdf, 70K, opens in new tab]
• FiReControl Q&A issue 4 July 2006 [pdf, 212K, opens in new tab]
• EADS Contract FAQ [pdf, 310K, opens in new tab]
• EADS Contract March 2007 Presentation [pdf, 410K, opens in new tab]
• FireControl Information Note 4 April 2007* [pdf, 156K, opens in new tab]

* Note that the South East Region disagrees with the figures included in Note 1 - In-service costs for the FRS.

There is now a large team working on the national project at Communities and Local Government. There are also regional and individual Fire & Rescue Service project teams.

The regional team for the South East region is based in Chichester, West Sussex.