Fresh calls have been made for the emergency services in Shetland to have a shared local control room.
Police Scotland assistant chief constable Andy Cowie told Friday’s community safety and resilience board meeting that while the long term “direction of travel” was towards pooling services, the force needs to be “pragmatic” in light of budget constraints.
The call was made by councillor Jonathan Wills.
While he acknowledged financial constraints, Wills said he has repeatedly supported having “unified” services locally instead of control rooms on the mainland.
At the moment 999 and 101 calls made in Shetland are answered in Scotland’s central belt, while fire calls are now taken in Dundee.
Committee chairman Alastair Cooper said the “biggest issue in cohabiting” was the ‘very, very expensive’ cost of software and how systems could be integrated in the future.
Cowie added that police chief constable Philip Gormley, who is due to visit Shetland in early March after a previous trip last year fell through due to poor weather, is “absolutely committed to localisation”.
Speaking later about the fire control room in Dundee, Cooper said he felt confident about the facility after visiting the centre in person.
The centre recently came under fire after crews in Bressay were sent to an incident in Yell due to geographical confusion.
However, he suggested the reported Dundee incident was likely caused by human error – something which could also happen locally.
Speaking after the meeting, Cowie said while the police force in Scotland is currently looking into pooling premises, sharing control rooms is more of a long-term option.
“Across all services, we’re looking at how we can deliver the best service within the budgets that we have been allocated, so we need to look at all of the options,” he said.
“Sharing services is a key one for us at the moment, and one thing we’re actively exploring is sharing premises, which is a fantastic way forward.”
Cowie, who said he would be passing on Wills’ concerns to Gormley, added that shared control facilities would be the ideal scenario for emergency services.
“If money wasn’t an option there would be a heck of a lot of things we’d like to do, and that is one of them,” he said.