PLANS to create nine regional fire controls across England will cost more than eight times the amount originally expected, according to the Fire Brigades Union (FBU).

The original budget for the project, which will involve closing Worcester’s call centre, was £100 million, but the move will now cost £868 million, says the FBU.

The union claims £278 million of that is being spent on management consultants, regional project directors, PR staff and agency staff and £400 million is being spent on renting new buildings.

The FBU is now calling for an urgent investigation into the plans, which will see 999 calls from Worcestershire and Herefordshire answered in Wolverhampton. Peter Hope, chairman of the Herefordshire and Worcestershire FBU branch, described the costs as “atrocious”. “This is coming three years late and there is no guarantee it is going to work,” he said. “The extra amount we as tax payers are going to be paying is also not known. The Government don’t know this themselves as the costs of this keep going up.

“What we do know is that these costs are going to get passed down to us.”

The Government plans to replace England’s 46 control centres with nine regional sites. This involves scrapping Worcester’s centre and having a regional base in Wolverhampton, covering the two counties, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and the West Midlands.

Alec Mackie, spokesman for Hereford and Worcester Fire and Rescue Service, said: “The building for which the regional control centre for these five brigades has been built has been completed.

“Currently it is being kitted out with all the necessary computer and various systems that will come on stream in 2009/10. There is a lot of work being done.”

The FBU is accusing the Government of diverting public money away from frontline fire services. He said cuts were having to be made to account for the change. But Worcester’s Labour MP Mike Foster said he did not believe the facts were as the FBU had presented them. “The Government have never said this is a cost cutting measure,” he said. “This is about providing greater resilience to emergency control rooms.

“The Government made it clear these control rooms will give fire fighters the most advanced technical support any fire service in the world has got.

“This is what the fire service and the public deserve.”

Mr Foster said the Government had allocated extra funds for the centres.