MOVING Oxfordshire's fire control room to a regional base in Hampshire will lead to a poorer service and increase the potential for 999 call handler mistakes, a former fireman has warned.

John Farrow, a county fireman for 38 years, fears the transfer will lead to incidents similar to a South Central Ambulance Service (SCAS) bungle, which saw an ambulance diverted to the wrong county.

On that occasion a call handler based in Milton Keynes accidentally sent an ambulance to Grove, in Bedfordshire instead of Grove, near Wantage.

A 14-year-old girl who had collapsed survived, but stopped breathing during her hour-long wait for emergency services.

Once the county's fire control room in Kidlington is moved to Fareham in January 2011, phone operators will take calls from people in eight counties — twice the size of the SCAS area.

Mr Farrow, who worked in the county's control room for 14 years, said: "We shouldn't be tampering with this.

"Fire operators are trained very highly to deal with the county and surrounding counties, but you can't expect someone sitting in Fareham to know the ins and outs of north or south Oxfordshire. It is a very large area to cover, and it increases the possibility of error."

Mr Farrow, a former county council cabinet member for community safety, added: "With the ambulance service incident, there was a degree of human error involved.

"A similar mistake could happen in the future with the fire service.

"Instead of talking about dealing with a few counties, you are talking about dealing with the whole of the South East.

"How many duplicate roads are there in that area?

"How many duplicate villages are there, and how many duplicate towns?"

The Government wants to establish nine regional control centres across the country to allow emergency services to better co-ordinate responses to major incidents, like the Buncefield oil fire and London terrorists attacks.

Oxfordshire's control room, in Kidlington, is due to be merged with eight others, with operators 83 miles away from the current control room.

It is hoped the move will save £1.4m a year in running costs — £3.4m less than was previously estimated in July last year.

Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service acting assistant chief fire officer, Colin Thomas, said: "I can understand the concerns, and our view is that local knowledge is always a good thing.

"However, the new system has some extra facilities with it to counteract any potential loss of local knowledge.

"The technology provided actually traces the calls and provides handlers with a geographical mapping system, so we know exactly where the call is from."