IT WAS announced on Friday Wiltshire and Swindon Fire Authority will not be allowed to provide a regional fire control centre.

But the fire authority can take some consolation from the fact that bids by its fellow fire authorities in the South West region were also thrown out by deputy prime minister John Prescott.

The fire control centre that will cover emergencies from Lands End to the Cotswolds will be built by a commercial bidder that will be selected early in the New Year.

It will mean that the joint emergency control centre, that was officially opened at the police headquarters site in Devizes less than a year ago, will only be manned by police and ambulance personnel, defeating the principle of "one calls brings them all" applauded by the Government when it chipped in with £2.6 million for the ground-breaking project.

But Jerry Willmott, from Potterne, chairman of the Wiltshire and Swindon Fire Authority, said it was still wasn't 100 per cent certain Wiltshire would not host the regional control centre.

He said: "The Government asked for bids from fire authorities and commercial companies to set up the new centre. Only the South West fire authorities put in bids, the rest of the 47 authorities relied on the commercial sector. This decision by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister means that all fire authority bids have been turned down.

"All we are concerned about is that we get the best possible option for our customers. We were not allowed to send a representative to scrutinise the fire authority bids, as one of the bids came from us, but we have been told we will be invited to send a representative to take part when they look at the bids from the commercial sector.

"It is very difficult to make anything positive out of this latest decision but we want to end up with the best possible option. I don't want to raise hopes, but Wiltshire is not totally out of the picture yet. I don't know if any commercial bids have been made in Wiltshire."

Mr Willmott and Wiltshire's chief fire officer, Andy Goves, were hoping that their "softly, softly" approach with local government minister Nick Raynesford might stand them in good stead after they approached him earlier this year on keeping the fire brigade's involvement going in Wiltshire's joint emergency control room.

But, during a 90-minute meeting, Mr Raynesford told them, politely but firmly, that the decision to organise fire control centres on a regional basis, cutting them down from 47 to just nine, had already been made.

The Government targeted the fire service as a suitable case for reorganisation after the National Fire Brigades' Union launched its campaign for a 40 per cent pay rise two years ago. The Government decided to take a robust stance with the firefighters and balance a much-reduced pay offer with a demand for modernisation.

Both fire authorities and unions agree that regional fire control centres will lose the local touch and vital minutes could be lost in dispatching fire engines due to a lack of local knowledge.

The Government counters that economies made on the provision of emergency control rooms will release funds for a more modern service.