Empty fire centre hit by fresh computer shambles

A senior MP said it was "beyond belief" that the navigation system can only recognise one city in Yorkshire – Wakefield, where the region's new control centre is already costing taxpayers 5,000 a day even though it is standing empty.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles revealed the shocking failures last night as he told MPs that the system designed to direct engines to fires and other emergencies – part of a troubled project to replace the existing 46 control rooms with nine regional centres – cannot do so in huge areas of the country.

Speaking to the Communities Select Committee chaired by Sheffield South East MP Clive Betts, Mr Pickles said: "There is a particular problem for you, Mr Betts, and me, if I was in Keighley, because the only town that the system recognised within the whole of Yorkshire is Wakefield.

"That in itself is slightly worrying. If you consider the only place that the system currently recognises in London is Southwark, you understand the problems we're up against."

Mr Betts, whose committee has repeatedly criticised the project as it spiralled over budget and over time, described it as a "complete disaster area".

"You can go and buy a reasonable sat nav system recognising the whole of the country for a couple of hundred pounds," he said. "It really is beyond belief that after seven or eight years of work they can't get something sorted that will work in a fire engine."

The FiReControl project – which will see the four control rooms in Yorkshire and Humberside amalgamated in the Wakefield building – promises to improve the response to 999 calls and major incidents.

But costs have ballooned from 120m to 420m and it has been beset by problems with the IT system and high turnover of staff running the project.

Angry Tory Ministers had already been examining whether the scheme can be ditched or altered, and Mr Pickles has now warned he will take a decision "pretty soon" after fiercely criticising EADS, the company behind the project.

Mr Pickles questioned whether the firm was "treating this at all with the degree of seriousness that I would expect" after revealing a catalogue of ongoing problems which he said "concerned and worried" him.

He claimed a team seconded to EADS by his department to resolve troubles had been frozen out by the company and forced to work from a portable building in a car park, and accused the company of failing to hit a June deadline to solve ongoing problems. "My message is a big European company like EADS should not mess us around any more," he said.

Fire officials in the region have previously suggested they may refuse to use the new control room if they are not satisfied it is safe, and the Fire Brigades Union has called for it to be scrapped.

Anger has been intensified by the money already being paid out in rent for the new Wakefield centre – equipped with a 6,000 espresso machine – even though it is not yet operational.

No one from EADS was available for comment last night. However, the company's website boasts: "Feeds from geographical information systems will enable Regional Control Centre teams to pinpoint at any time the availability and status of the nearest and most appropriate resources, regardless of fire service boundaries, as well as the precise location of callers and incidents."