FIRE and rescue services in the North-East will be among the first in the UK to switch to controversial regional control centres.

The move, part of Government modernisation plans for the fire service, is expected to be completed in little over a year.

Control rooms serving the region's four brigades will be closed and replaced with a modern centre at a location to be decided.

Unions have objected to the plans because they fear it could make the centres a greater terrorist threat.

But brigade chiefs insist the move - influenced by the September 11 atrocities - will make them more secure and better able to deal with all emergencies.

They claim it is closely linked with other national projects to improve the country's resilience and ability to manage incidents, such as terrorist attacks, or natural disasters, such as flooding.

Nine regional control centres are planned in a national project aimed to update operations throughout England.

Brigades in the North-East, South West and East Midlands will be the first to operate the new systems.

Fire chiefs at Cleveland Fire Brigade, Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service, and Durham and Darlington Fire and Rescue Service aim to ensure the transition to regional control centres is achieved by the end of 2006.

Decisions on the location of the North-East site, and the other two regions in the first phase of modernisation, are expected to be made early in the New Year. All other centres will then follow in a second tranche and go live from 2007 onwards.

John Burke, director of support services at Cleveland Fire Brigade, and project director for the North-East, said: "The regional project team is working towards an implementation date in November 2006. Work will start on a new state-of-the art building sometime during 2005."