The time-scale for Shropshire’s fire service to move over to a new regional control centre being built in Wolverhampton has been revealed.

The £23 million call centre should start to handle Shropshire calls within two years if everything goes to plan. Staffordshire will be the first fire service to move across to the new building in May 2011 and will be followed by the West Midlands service in September that year.

The centre, which is being built at Wolverhampton Business Park, off Stafford Road, is expected to handle more than 100,000 emergency telephone calls a year and create 130 jobs.

It had been hoped that it would open in 2010 but the project is part of national plans to cut the number of centres across the country from 46 to nine in a major revamp and they have been held up due to “technical problems”.

The Wolverhampton base will replace call centres at Stone, Birmingham, and Shrewsbury.

When the move is completed the centre will take calls for the West Midlands, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire, Hereford and Worcester.

It is hoped Shropshire will make the move in January 2012 followed by Warwickshire and Hereford and Worcester in March that year.

The new control centre will offer specialist features such as an interactive screen allowing access to instant video information which it is hoped will offer fire services more control of incident management.

The initial phase is now completed which saw the control room, training rooms and rest areas fitted out. The next phase will see digital radio equipment installed.

Chief executive of the Regional Control Company Ltd, Phil Purssey, said: “We are mid-way through a very complex project, however the five fire and rescue authorities are working with us to ensure that we are on plan with our schedule.

“These are very exciting times as we are seeing real progress to implement a modernisation programme which will provide real benefits for both the general public and fire services alike.”

Earlier this year the the Fire Brigades Union claimed delays in the national plan to cut the number of centres were costing the taxpayer £40,000 a day.

By John Kirk