THE controversial plans to axe Hampshire's fire control centre and replace it with a regional centre for the South East have faced further opposition.

Critics have warned that the decision could spell disaster for East Hampshire with emergency calls likely to be taken by operators outside of the county.

Existing county control centres across England are to be scrapped in favour of eight new regional centres, including one for the south east. London already has a regional centre. The current fire control centre for Hampshire is located in Eastleigh.

Although the locations of the other seven new centres have been announced, negotiations with developers are still ongoing for the South East and the government has delayed announcing its location.

However, it has confirmed that the South East will have a regional centre replacing the nine which currently cover Surrey, Hampshire, East and West Sussex, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Kent.

The news means that the axe is likely to fall on all of the area's existing centres which currently deal with the fire service's emergency calls.

It is thought that a new purpose-built site is likely to be created to accommodate the new centre, rather than a redevelopment of an existing site.

The government has claimed that the changes will allow investment in new technology and modernisation.

"There is a compelling need to modernise and rationalise the control rooms in England," the minister who has the responsibility for fire, Jim Fitzpatrick, said.

"In the post-9/11 world, and in the wake of the events of July 7, we need control centres that are resilient enough to deal with a terrorist attack or any natural disaster.

"While existing control rooms do a good job, they are not designed to deal in a co- ordinated way with major regional or national incidents – they need improvement and investment."

However, critics argue that the move could cost lives as local knowledge is lost and could lead to confusion; for example, there are two places called Headley in Hampshire as well as a Headley in Surrey.

The Fire Brigades' Union, which has opposed the plan, rejected government claims that the shake-up will improve safety, with technology brought in to replace workers who calm and reassure callers.

"The government proposes to spend £1 billion making us all less safe," said Geoff Ellis, leader of the union's campaign against the regional centres.

"It involves replacing people with expensive and untried technology. And when the technology fails, as all technology does sometimes, you rely entirely on human beings, their training as well as their local knowledge.

"Reducing the number of control centres in England from 46 to nine means that we will no longer be able to rely on that local knowledge."

Union president Ruth Winters added: "I have worked in control centres for nearly 20 years.

"I have taken calls in which I have spent 15 minutes on the telephone, literally saving a life, but this can only be done when there are enough staff to take other emergency calls."

South West Surrey MP Jeremy Hunt said that the changes would move emergency calls to "a distant regional call centre" by people "who have little knowledge of South West Surrey".

"The South East region contains 8,037,000 people, and covers a mammoth area of 19,069 sq km," he said.

"Civil resilience could also be damaged by placing all our eggs in one basket.

"If the regional centre is forced off-line by a disaster or attack, the whole emergency response will go down across a massive geographical area.

"I fear that local fire stations could be next if distant regional politicians continue with their cuts. John Prescott's regional empire building is playing politics with fire safety."

Local fire and rescue services can now do nothing but wait for the announcement of where the south east centre will be.

"This delay is unfortunate, but we will support all staff through this period and keep them informed of developments as soon as we are made aware of them," Surrey Fire and Rescue said in a statement.

A spokesman for Hampshire's fire service added: "We are currently waiting for notification of when the announcement will be."