Advantages in Making Essex a Region in its own Right no. 1 :The Fire Service

There is a storm brewing over the Government's proposal to replace England's 46 Fire Control Centres with just 9 regional ones.
Essex would no longer have a control room - it would be looked after by a regional centre in Cambridge. The Fire Brigades Union are very concerned about this - in terms of their members' jobs, and in terms of running an effective service with local knowledge

I haven't looked about this in any depth yet. I don't assume that the Fire Brigades Union are always right . But my instincts are that these proposals are wrong, wrong, wrong. Another case of centralising for the sake of it.

Its a longstanding belief of mine that Essex is big enough, populated enough and coherent enough to be a region in its own right. If we were a region, we'd presumably keep our own centre.