A letter from our Chairman: the white elephant regional fire control centre

Sir, The Origin of the White Elephant Regional Fire Control Centres

Chris Williamson MP seems to have rather a selective memory about this massive waste of money in all regions of England, not just at Castle Donington. It was actually part of John Prescott’s plan to balkanise England into Euro-regions to match the devolution in Scotland and Wales.

The whole of Britain would be divided into bite-sized regions of around 5 million people which would be easier for the EU to digest. The intention was that we should gradually cease to feel British or English and become happy East Midlanders and Europeans. As Nick Clegg was pleased to tell everyone, England did not exist on EU maps.

Scotland and Wales are EU regions. Many EU grants were administered at regional level and could be manipulated through the EU Council of the Regions to remake the country to the EU model. As we always paid more into the EU than we got out, officials and politicians were essentially to be bribed with laundered British money to remodel our country to an alien pattern.

John Prescott had set up unelected regional assemblies and the fire control centres were an attempt to give them something to administer. The project was opposed by the Fire Brigades Union, as the regions were grotesquely oversized for operators to have adequate local knowledge to direct fire engines swiftly. Nonetheless, the money was spent.

The next step was to prove that there was a popular demand for the project which was sold as “bringing government closer to the people”. The fraud was detected by the people of the North East of England. Far from looking enviously to the doings in Edinburgh, they decisively rejected the idea of an elected regional assembly in a referendum, as “A White Elephant”.

In other parts of the country, Church of England bishops were persuaded to chair campaigns called “Constitutional Conventions” to pretend that there was a popular demand for the scheme. They were aided by the political activist Canon Kenyon Wright from Scotland. With vigorous resistance from alert local campaigners, as well as the example set by the electors of the North East, these officially sponsored groups simply faded away to deserved oblivion.

All that is left is the debt and continuing cost and a lesson about allowing insidious foreign forms of government into our country. Perhaps David Davis should demand a rebate from the EU?

Yours faithfully

Edward Spalton

(As a background note:- a number of these centres have been built across the country and continue to be rented but have never been used – ES)