HAMPSHIRE has joined forces with other cash-strapped fire services in the south in a bid to save cash.

It has teamed up with services in Devon and Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire to take delivery of a new control and communications system.

The services have signed an eight-year £7m contract with public sector specialist Capita which will provide the system in all of their control rooms.

They say it will mean they are better able to cope at busy times.

The agreement has been called the Networked Fire Control Services Partnership (NFCSP).

NFCSP strategic board chairman Dave Curry said: “Because all four fire and rescue services will have the same Capita technology in their control centres, it will give us far greater resilience.

“If one service is under pressure for whatever reason, one of the others will be able to provide full support.

“This integrated system will allow us to work together even more effectively than we do at the moment, and that can only be good for public and firefighter safety.”

He added: “This is very much ‘one system, many opportunities’. We will have the ability to work together when we need to, we will be able to train together and many of our processes will be simplified.

“The fire and rescue service nationally has been challenged to face the future and find better ways of working – we are confident that this project will achieve the efficiencies and economies that Government is demanding of us.”

Contract costs are being met from central Government funding.