The Government's plan to reduce the number of emergency fire control rooms in England and Wales from 49 brigade control rooms to only nine regional centres is dangerous and ill thought out.

Under the guise of modernisation, it would be a costly and, more importantly, dangerous degradation of the fire service.

In West Sussex, this will mean losing our control centre in Chichester and joining eight other brigades from the South East.

West Sussex currently handles 26,000 calls a year, with between four and six operators on duty at any one time. The new control centre will be expected to handle 130,000 calls a year with approximately ten operators on duty.

The Government says it will manage this using new technology, all of which is untried and untested.

There have been well-publicised problems with a number of other control centres, including air traffic, police, ambulance and the national coastguard's 19 control centres.

Unlike some of those, there has never been a widespread catastrophic collapse of emergency fire controls because they are built to be resilient and back each other up.

There have also been a number of high-profile crises when Government plans to use new technology hit reality, such as the Criminal Records Bureau, the new passport system or helicopters which can't fly in poor conditions, problems which have only been partially solved by throwing money at them.

The Government's track record in these areas is very poor and does not fill anyone with confidence. In contrast, the fire service's control rooms are proven value for money.

The current arrangement of 49 emergency fire control rooms offers better resilience in the event of a terrorist attack.

Following the atrocities of 9/11, New York Fire Department is actively considering moving from one large control room to five smaller controls to improve resilience and performance.

This is the opposite of what the UK Government is planning but with the same justification.

While better communication between brigades is needed, putting all your eggs into one regional basket is not a good idea.

Currently, we have well-rehearsed plans for mutual assistance and a fallback position in the event of a problem in one control.

Local fire authorities and chief fire officers have been told if they do not go along with these changes they will be forced through by national Government.

A totally unrealistic time-line for the new controls to be up and running has been set and the budget is already spiralling.

The latest Government estimate is £754.5 million and council tax is expected to have to rise to pay for this scheme.

This could be another air traffic control fiasco, with deadlines not being met, equipment failing and costs spiralling out of control.

Some 900 jobs nationally - nearly two-thirds of the workforce - are expected to be lost and once the skills and expertise of emergency fire control operators are lost they will be gone forever.

They work closely with frontline firefighters as part of a dedicated and professional team.

Firefighting starts the minute a call is answered in an emergency fire control room, every second counts, and all calls are treated with the same urgency and efficiency.

The local knowledge control operators have is essential for making sure the right resources are deployed to deal with an incident.

An operator in a new control centre will have no chance of having local knowledge of nine counties.

Fire controls answer calls in seconds. You are never held in a queue for an age while being told "your call will be answered shortly". Not yet anyway.

I urge readers to write to their MPs and speak out against these plans to regionalise fire control rooms and sign the petition at your local fire station.

It is their communities which will end up paying the price of this folly and their lives at risk.

-Andy Hockley, Fire Brigades Union branch secretary, Worthing Fire Station, Ardsheal Road, Worthing