A regional fire control centre in Cambridgeshire which has remained empty since it was built in 2009 and reportedly costs taxpayers £2 million annually to maintain, may soon be sublet.

The BBC has reported that the government may be ‘in negotiations’ with a prospective tenant, who is interested in leasing the £23m, 3000sqm building at Waterbeach, Cambridgeshire.

The Fire Brigades Union said the cost of maintaining the building annually could have funded 16 fire stations for a year.

If it had been occupied as originally intended, the regional control centre would have fielded fire emergency calls from Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, north Essex and Suffolk.

The project was abandoned in 2010 after the coalition government said it could not be delivered to ‘an acceptable timeframe’.

The Labour MP for Cambridge, Daniel Zeichner said it was "really depressing" that the building was not being used.

He continued, "We were assured over a year ago that this was finally going to be resolved and here we are another 18 months on, still costing us more, still unresolved."

The control centre was built under the private finance initiative scheme.

Original source

BBC News Cambridgeshire