Emergency operators in Dundee will receive 999 calls in portable buildings for five months, the fire service has revealed.
Scottish Fire and Rescue Service is closing control rooms to create a 999 regional hub in Dundee, but it will not be ready until March next year.
Dundee control room staff will be in temporary accommodation from September 28, while the new facility is upgraded.
There will be closures of control rooms in Aberdeen and Inverness, with staff moving to what the fire service calls “hi-spec modular accommodation” ahead of their transfer to the hub.
The fire service has sought to allay concerns that the temporary buildings will affect the quality of service and added that concerns over a lack of local knowledge among staff will not be an issue.
Alasdair Hay, the SFRS’ chief officer, said: “This announcement is the culmination of a very great deal of planning and preparation.
“The public can rest assured that there will be no change to the outstanding service that we provide, and we will continue to attend every 999 call ahead of the launch of our new Operations Control at Dundee in March.”
A fire service spokesman said that operations control staff will “undertake training and pool their knowledge on the particular risks and geography of each area”.
Liam McArthur, justice spokesman for the Scottish Liberal Democrats, said staff working in temporary buildings is “hardly what was promised” when the fire service said it would centralise operations in the region into a state of the art facility.
“Everyone understands the problems that we saw in police control rooms when local centres were closed and services were centralised,” he said.
“Staff at Bilston Glen and other facilities are struggling to cope with the pressure and problems with services have been implicated in tragic incidents like the crash on the M9.
“Any move to centralise these life-saving services further need to be scrutinised fully. We need cast-iron assurances that people will still be able to reach emergency staff when they need them.”
The plan to shut the facilities was announced in 2014 as part of a major shake-up following the creation of the national fire service.
