A PLAN to close fire brigade control rooms across the region and create a single regional centre has been branded crazy.

Control room services across the North-East could be merged at one centre.

Services in North Yorkshire would also be directed by a new centre within the Yorkshire region.

The Northern Echo revealed earlier this year that the Government had separate plans to replace Durham, Cleveland, Tyne and Wear and Northumberland brigades with one "super brigade".

The firefighters' union has obtained Government plans to close 49 control room across the UK and move them to nine regional centres, and said it could take industrial action to block the scheme.

There are already plans to move Cleveland Fire and Rescue brigade headquarters, in Hartlepool, to the police headquarters at Ladgate Lane, in Middlesbrough, by 2007 at a cost of £2.7m of Government money.

The plans to restructure the entire fire and rescue service across the UK has been branded crazy by the Fire Brigades' Union, which said the proposal would drain money from services.

A spokesman for the union said the Government had overestimated savings and wanted to use private money to build control rooms that would not be available to public scrutiny.

In a report titled Out Of Control, the union said that building larger regional centres would make them easier targets for terrorist attacks and lead to a loss of local knowledge.

The union's president, Ruth Winterson, said: ''Costs are underestimated to create a false picture, and local council taxpayers will be lumbered with unwanted regional control rooms and left to pick up the long-term bills.

''Emergency fire control rooms are cost-effective, and those who work in them save lives and are highly professional."

The Government denied the claims from the union and said that technology to enable control rooms to pinpoint the location of callers and vehicles made the importance of local knowledge a myth.