Handover of first Regional Control Centre

A major step towards fulfilling this need was celebrated when the newly completed Regional Control Centre (RCC) building in Castle Donington was handed over by Government to the East Midlands region on 23 July.  The FiReControl project, which is part of Communities and Local Government’s Fire Resilience Programme, delivered the RCC as the first of a national network of nine state-of-the-art control centres that will replace the current 46 separate control rooms in England.

On handing over the RCC building to the region, the Fire Minister Parmjit Dhanda MP said, “I am delighted that my first public event as Fire Minister is to mark this major milestone in this nationally important project.”  

The new resilient three-storey RCC building has passed a flood risk assessment and will serve 4.2 million people throughout the region. It will be networked to the other eight RCCs, which will support each other in times of increased call pressure or other need. 

The RCCs will be able to deploy the nearest appliances to incidents regardless of where they are in relation to FRS borders. They will also provide information direct to the cab of firefighting vehicles about routes to the incident site, floor plans, hazards and water supplies.   

When the national FiReControl system goes live in late 2009 the Regional Control Centres will be responsible for the following activities:

• 999 call handling and call prioritisation
• Nearest available appropriate resource mobilisation
• Incident communication, updating and escalation
• System data maintenance – including PDA, gazetteer and risk information
• Performance and quality improvement reporting
• Mutual and fallback support
• New Dimension equipment mobilisation 

The newly-established East Midlands Fire and Rescue Control Centre Limited has been set up by the Fire and Rescue Authorities within the region to manage the new control centre for Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Northamptonshire.

Derbyshire will be the first Fire and Rescue Service to transfer its control room functions to the RCC, in Autumn 2009.

For more information, please visit www.firecontrol.communities.gov.uk