Good progress is being made on the project at regional level. Three regions have already established their local authority controlled companies that will operate their Regional Control Centre. One Regional Control Centre Director is in post and the recruitment of others is in hand. Regions have completed preliminary planning and scoping work around all the major activities they will need to undertake to transfer controls to the RCC network.
Detailed planning will start in the next few months once the IT contract has been awarded and the timetable for transfer to the new system has been agreed.
Each Regional Control Centre will be leased from the owners of the buildings. Details of the rents, lengths of leases and the dates when the buildings are due for completion are set out in the following table.
Region Lease length (years) Rent (£ per annum exclusive of VAT) Target practical completion date Rent commencement date North East 20 1,156,009 30 March 2007 13 January 2008 East Midlands 25 1,205,000 29 June 2007 20 January 2008 South West 20 1,213,500 16 May 2007 16 November 2007 West Midlands 25 1,358,311 20 December 2007 4 October 2008 North West 25 1,197,500 1 July 2008 1 January 2009 Yorkshire and Humberside 20 1,198,808 1 July 2008 14 April 2009 East of England 25 1,349,322 1 October 2008 21 April 2009 South East 25 1,445,000 14 May 2008 14 November 2008 London (estimate only) — — Q1 2010 —
A public procurement process under EU rules is still under way for the London regional control centre