A MAJOR fire control centre for the North-East will not be operational until 2008 at the earliest, The Northern Echo has learnt.

The facility, which will handle 999 calls from across the region, is being built on Belmont Business Park, on the outskirts of Durham City.

It had been thought it would be up and running by November next year.

But fire chiefs have now revealed that the centre, which will replace control rooms in Durham, Hartlepool, Morpeth and Newcastle, will not be fully operational until sometime in 2008.

John Burke, director of support services at Cleveland Fire Brigade and the man in charge of the North-East project, said the region remained in the first group of centres to go live and good progress was being made.

He said: "The November date was one of the original planning dates and there was always an expectation that it was likely to change.

"Existing provision for the handling of calls will remain and the public will continue to receive the same high level of service through to the time of changeover."

Mr Burke described as inaccurate reports that the bill for the control centre would top £110m.

He also played down fears expressed by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) that costs could spiral and end up being met by the taxpayer.

Mr Burke said: "The information we have is that the project costs, as in the Government's outline business plan, remain firm."

Subject to planning permission, building work is expected to begin in the next six months, contracts having been signed with Helios (Belmont) Limited and Whelan Construction.

The developers will be expected to meet the costs of building the centre, which they will own and rent back to the fire and rescue services.

Funding is also being made available through the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

It has said a network of regional control centres will be able to deal in a better co-ordinated way with major incidents than the existing more localised structure.

But the shake-up has come in for criticism from the FBU, which has warned that the technology is "untested".

Belmont is understood to have been chosen ahead of other possible sites in the region with the project team having taken into account factors such as the risk from flooding and flight paths, and its good transport links.