I am astonished the Government has pushed through its "rationalisation" agenda for the Fire Service with little more than a whimper.

While waving a big stick over the Fire Service and quoting "modernisation" at every turn, the Government is determined to destroy the one public sector service which works.

At an estimated cost of £2 billion, the Government has decided to regionalise 49 Emergency Fire service Controls into nine Regional Controls - for an eventual estimated saving of £90,000 per County Fire Service.

The representative bodies and some conscientious MPs have argued against this madness, highlighting the loss of local knowledge when answering emergency calls.

The Government states that local knowledge is not necessary as the call handling and dispatching equipment will automatically know where an incident is - even though this equipment has not yet been developed.

What I ask people to consider is that we often hear of ambulances taking 30 minutes to arrive or the police several hours or days to arrive after a call for help. The Fire Service always arrives in minutes, whatever and wherever the incident.

This shows that the system works. Fire Services have cross-border agreements and contingency plans which work. I was always taught that "if ain't broken, don't

fix it".

I would suggest that spending £2 billion of public money on this agenda is obscene and if this money is available, it should be spent on ambulances and paramedics, police and police cars, schools and teachers.

Where would you like your £2 billion spent? Do we really need a super call centre or should we maintain the system which has already proved it works time and time again?

I urge all readers to write to their MPs and councillors to stop this madness before it is too late and the money pit is fully opened.

-Richard Broady, Eastbourne