PLANS for a single fire control room - to answer 999 calls from across the North-East - will put lives at risk, Menzies Campbell warned yesterday.

The Liberal Democrat leader attacked the proposal to close 46 fire and rescue centres across England in favour of only nine regional command centres.

The shake-up will close centres in Durham, Hartlepool, Newcastle and Morpeth to make way for a base at Belmont Business Park, Durham, due to open next year.

Similarly, North Yorkshire's fire control room in Northallerton will make way for a multi-million pound centre in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

The Government has argued that smaller centres lack the technology to cope with modern emergencies.

Regional bases will speed up responses by allowing the fire service to pinpoint the location of every caller, whether from a landline or a mobile telephone, ministers say.

But Mr Campbell warned that staff responding to emergencies across an entire region would lack the "crucial local knowledge" they need.

In particular, the devastation caused by this summer's floods - which forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in North Yorkshire - had highlighted the risks.

Speaking in Gloucester, Mr Campbell said: "The Government is compromising safety and could be putting lives at risk by introducing regional fire and rescue control centres.

"Closing down locally-based centres will severely undermine a community's ability to cope with emergency situations, such as flooding, while regional centres will lack crucial local knowledge."

The Lib Dem leader was speaking at a combined police, fire and ambulance centre in Gloucester which, he said, had been widely praised for its response to recent flooding.

Last year, the Commons local government committee said the £1bn regionalisation project was high risk because of the opposition from most local fire and rescue services.

There were also "considerable risks" that fire authorities would end up meeting the bill for the shake-up, it warned.

The Fire Brigade Union said regional fire control centres paved the way for part-privatisation of the service.