Emergency services looking at joining forces

Emergency services in Lincolnshire are holding talks aimed at coming under one roof.

Police, fire and ambulances services are in the early stages over the possibility of sharing buildings and departments.

The  move could help save money after Lincolnshire Police’s chief constable warned they would run out of money by 2018.

Chief fire officer Dave Ramscar said apart from the respective HQs, the possibility of police opening offices at the county’s 38 fire stations was also being looked at.

Mr Ramscar told BBC Radio Lincolnshire: “It’s fair to say that discussions are ongoing about merging departments, sharing buildings and sharing back office functions, and there is also a possibility of merging control rooms and crews being deployed together, but this could be some years down the line.

“This could lead to job losses in some quarters but again it is very early days.

“This is primarily being driven by the need to save money, but the services themselves say the service to the public would not suffer, and would instead improve because money saved would be ploughed into the frontline.”

A spokesman for East Midlands Ambulance Service said emergency services in Lincolnshire already worked closely together and confirmed it was “considering opportunities for co-location”.