Fire Control – the project to replace England’s 46 fire and rescue control rooms with a national network of nine regional control centres – has been axed.

In a written statement to parliament today, fire minister Bob Neill said that he had reached agreement with the main contractor Cassidian (formerly EADS Defence & Security) to cancel the project with immediate effect, because the project requirements cannot be delivered to an acceptable timeframe.

Mr Neill told parliament:

“Following extensive discussion with Cassidian, we have jointly concluded, with regret, that the requirements of the project cannot be delivered to an acceptable timeframe. Therefore the best outcome for the taxpayer and the fire and rescue community is for the contract to be terminated with immediate effect. Cassidian and the Department for Communities and Local Government have reached an acceptable settlement over this, although the details will remain commercially confidential.”

Fire Control has been beset with delays and technical problems, and the original project cost of £120m has grown to £420m.

In April, a select committee of MPs said the project had been inadequately planned, poorly executed and badly managed.

In June, Mr Neill announced that Fire Control was under review, and that the project, if it was to survive, would have to be delivered on time and to budget without cutting any corners.

In August, the BBC revealed that £1m a month was being wasted on maintaining the nine regional control centres which lay unused. In September the project descended into near-farce when Mr Neill claimed that communication equipment supplied to fire stations was a fire hazard itself, and that relations with Cassidian had become so bad that a team representing fire and rescue service and CLG has been banished to portakabins in the car park of the company’s Newport office.

CLG says it will now “consult with the fire and rescue community” on the future of control rooms in England, including those Fire Control assets already delivered, and that this will be “based on the principles of localism”.