Exclusive: Tenant found at last for £14m centre after public spending fiasco

One of the biggest public spending fiascos Yorkshire has seen in decades may finally be drawing to a close after the Government claimed it had found a prospective tenant for the region’s unused fire control centre.
The Regional Fire Control Centre, WakefieldThe Regional Fire Control Centre, Wakefield
The Regional Fire Control Centre, Wakefield

An unnamed public sector body has reached an agreement “in principle” with Whitehall officials to make use of the £14m fire control centre at the Paragon Business Village in Wakefield, which has stood empty for the past six years costing taxpayers £5,000 per day.

In a letter to the Commons public account committee (PAC), Sir Bob Kerslake – Whitehall’s most senior civil servant – wrote: “Towards the end of April, we reached in principle agreement with a large public sector organisation for them to occupy the Wakefield Control Centre.

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“Subject to completion of the legal formalities of the deal, this will mean only four of the original nine centres will remain unused.”

The Department for Communities and Local Government said last night that negotiations are still ongoing – but that officials remain hopeful of concluding a deal.

The regional fire control project is regarded as one of the most disastrous and profligate schemes of the New Labour years, costing around £500m before finally being aborted in 2010.

Launched by former Hull MP and then-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott in 2004, the project involved replacing the nation’s individual fire service control rooms with a network of nine regional centres, sited in new purpose-built premises across the country.

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The new centres were built to astonishingly high specifications, featuring £6,000 coffee machines and £4,000 sofas.

But their computer systems never worked, and after years of delay and overspend the entire project was cancelled in 2010.

The nine unused centres still stand, however, with the Government locked into long-term PFI contracts without break clauses, costing taxpayers £5,000 a day

Uses have been found for four of the buildings, but five more –including the Yorkshire centre in Wakefield – remain empty. Earlier this year Sir Bob told the PAC that the Government is now offering £1m-plus subsidies to anyone willing to move into the centres.

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PAC chairwoman Margaret Hodge described the payments as “bribes”, designed to bring an end to what she termed “one of the worst cases of project failure this committee has ever seen”.

A deal to lease the Wakefield control centre is likely to involve a significant subsidy. West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Yorkshire Ambulance Service both denied they are poised to move in.