Revealed: More than £60m spent on four unused state-of-the-art fire control centres

The new buildings in Wakefield, Taunton, Cambridge and Castle Donington were mothballed by the coalition government in 2010 and if they remain empty for the entirety of their 20 and 25-year leases the full taxpayer bill will run to more than £150m.

The former Labour government failed to insert any break clauses into the contracts which began as long ago as 2007, meaning commercial landlords are guaranteed highly lucrative and increasing rent with no pressing incentive to put the facilities to use.

The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) described the squandering of public money, at a time of major cuts to services, as “an absolute farce”.

The four buildings were among nine built as part of a disastrous scheme, approved in 2004, to develop regional fire control centres to replace 46 separate control rooms across the country. The plan was scrapped six years later when the coalition government decided spiralling costs and major delays to the IT system meant it would actually be cheaper to call a complete halt.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has previously estimated the failed project cost the public purse at least £482m.

Using significant subsidies, the DCLG has managed to find tenants for five of the buildings – three to fire authorities, one to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and another to commercial organisation.

But the remaining four are sitting empty at a cost of more than £7m a year – a figure that will rise due to a 2.5 per cent annual interest increase on rents. A freedom of information request to the DCLG revealed the building in Wakefield, which was due to be a regional control centre for Yorkshire and Humberside, cost £1.6m in 2016/17 to bring the total for that centre so far to £13.3m.

Nearly £1.4m of last year’s total was spent on rent, with the remainder going on rates, utilities and a fixed management fee. The lease began in 2009 and runs for 20 years.

The empty centre at Castle Donington, which was to have served the East Midlands, cost nearly £1.8m last year to bring its total bill so far to £14.5m. The lease began in 2008 and runs for 25 years.

The unused facility in Cambridge, due to be a regional control for the East of England, cost just over £2m with a running total so far of just under £15m. The lease began in 2009 and runs for 25 years.

The building in Taunton, due to serve the South West, cost £1.9m for a current total of £17.5m. The lease began in 2007 and runs for 20 years.

Lynda Rowan O’Neill, national secretary of the FBU’s Control Staff National Committee, said: “It is an absolute farce that taxpayers are still footing the bill all these years later for a set of empty buildings.

“The eye-watering costs are a kick in the teeth to those in the fire service given that funding for everything else has been cut to the bone.

“Apparently, there is no money to replace the 500 emergency control operator jobs that have been cut since 2010 but millions of pounds a year can be found to pay a private developer rent on buildings that serve absolutely no purpose.

“The Fire Brigades Union warned the government years ago that the FiReControl project was doomed to failure. What we didn’t expect was for each successive government since to be even more incompetent than the last. This saga has been going on for more than a decade now and taxpayers are still paying the price for the buildings, all whilst frontline services are being cut relentlessly.”

The DCLG acknowledged it is contractually liable until each lease ends as there are no break clauses and pointed to the specific design of the buildings as hi-tech control centres as a hindrance to letting them.

The department said: “The structure of the lease agreements mean that DCLG is unable to sell the buildings directly as the freehold remains with the respective landlords. It should be noted also that as government does not own the freehold of these buildings we cannot sell them to secure income for taxpayers and the centre.

“This was agreed before 2010 and was a major failing of planning by the previous administration as ultimately the public will continue to shoulder the ongoing liability for the empty buildings.

“The bespoke nature and location of the buildings continues to restrict the demand for the centres. Both the deliberately narrow specification of the buildings and the finance arrangements in the project’s delivery were noted in the NAO report of 2011.

“We continue in our efforts, however, to reduce the on-going cost liability by seeking suitable sub-tenants through a targeted and strategic marketing approach to subletting and interest remains in the last four remaining centres.”