The royal family and offshore workers could be put at risk by the closure of Aberdeen police and fire control rooms, a former worker has claimed.
A group of MSPs heard that the St Fergus gas terminal, Aberdeen Airport and Peterhead Power Station were “vulnerable to terrorist attack” and could be threatened further if a move to axe the local 999 centres went ahead.
Former police control worker Jody Curtis raised the prospect as she addressed Holyrood’s public petitions committee alongside Laura Ross, of Kincraig, who is seeking to save Inverness fire control room from closure.
Ms Ross also raised doubts that staff in the Dundee fire centre, which is earmarked to cover all the north and north-east, could handle the range of dialects and languages across the region.
Ms Curtis said: “Aberdeen control centre undertakes the security and safekeeping of the royals on their visits to the north.
“Aberdeen fire and police control rooms are well versed in the management of emergency procedures in specific locations such as St Fergus and Peterhead Power Station, which may be vulnerable to a terrorist attack or a large-scale disaster.”
She told MSPs that Aberdeen had additional responsibility for the North Sea, where 70,000 people worked and where the potential for disasters such as Piper Alpha and terrorism was “significant”. “It is unlikely that a central system would have the degree of sophistication necessary to address these issues as well as local centres.”
Ms Ross said the Highlands and islands covered an area as large as Belgium – a third of Scotland’s landmass – and place names were often replicated in English and Gaelic.
“We have Gaelic, Orcadian, Norwegian up in Shetland and we have Doric,” she said.
“Combined with all of the regional accents and the large population of eastern Europeans, our main concern is why is this control room being proposed to go to Dundee, which has one of the strongest regional dialects in Scotland.
“How on earth do they propose that someone with such a strong regional dialect and accent from our area will be sufficiently understood?”
The committee decided to continue the petition while it consulted the justice committee and its policing sub-committee, both of which are already looking into police and fire reforms to avoid any potential duplication.