FURTHER to your article (LET, August 11) regarding the new regional fire control centre at Warrington, I should like to make a few points clear.

Much has been made of the loss of local knowledge that the move to a regional control centre will entail. I would like to allay fears on this.

The technology that will be installed in the regional control centres will allow control staff to pinpoint locations of callers (whether from landline or mobile) and identify the nearest available appliance to mobilise much more effectively than current arrangements.

This will reduce response times and ensure that the right resource is mobilised most appropriately.

The firefighters actually responding to the call will still normally be from the local fire and rescue service with local knowledge -- but their local knowledge will be improved because technology will update them on matters such as traffic and roadworks information and local risk information which can change daily.

In addition, both the safety of the public and firefighters will be increased because the technology will allow information about incidents, including such matters as the location of hydrants and building plans or hazard locations to be sent direct to the appliance responding on route.

This extra information will mean that firefighters will arrive on the scene better prepared and better equipped to deal with the incident.

This technology is tried and tested -- some fire brigades already operate such systems.

The new regional control centres will mean that all brigades have access to the same state-of-the-art systems.

In addition all the regional control centre will be networked to each other which means that should one centre be taken offline for whatever reason, say a natural disaster, there are automatic back-up arrangements in place whereby another regional control centre can immediately handle calls.

This is a significant improvement on current arrangements which mean that if a control room goes out of operation there are no immediate back-up facilities -- meaning 999 calls could go unanswered.

All in all the new regional control arrangements are designed to make responses faster and more effective.

Public safety is our priority and this project will improve that safety and deliver the best possible service -- one that can meet the demands of the 21st century.

JIM FITZPATRICK, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State.