TOWN MP Peter Luff has thrown his weight behind a Commons motion calling for urgent reconsideration of the Government's plans to move fire control services to Birmingham.

"The Government wants to close local control rooms that understand the geography of Worcestershire and Herefordshire and replace them with one remote regional centre in Birmingham," said Mr Luff.

He added: "The staffing level planned for this regional centre is dangerously low and I believe firefighting in my constituency will be seriously compromised by these madcap ideas. As far as I know not a single local firefighter supports these plans which I believe will put lives at risk."

The motion, called 'risks associated with regional emergency fire control centres', says the scheme is high risk and calls for an independent assessment of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's final case before this project proceeds.

Tory MP Mr Luff said: "My only regret about this motion is that it doesn't go far enough. There's an amendment that has just gone down which calls on the Government to abort plans for the imposition of regional fire control centres which is bang on and which I may support instead."

He added: "We need local services, locally accountable, not regional services accountable to no one. Firefighting is too important to mess around with as the Government proposes."