UNION bosses today claimed Essex Fire Service was "in turmoil" after a new state-of-the-art control system that sends fire engines to emergencies "collapsed".

The FBU claimed the hi-tech system was sending the wrong appliances to emergencies and even to the wrong towns.

It said some were listed as ‘not being available’ when firefighters were ready and prepared to attend incidents as usual.

The union also claimed fire engines across the county had been sent to wrong addresses and in some cases crews from Harlow had been sent to Colchester.

Union bosses said operators were forced to revert to 1950s–style methods, jotting notes on pads and informing fire station of emergencies by phone.

FBU chairman Alan Chinn-Shaw called it a "shambles".

“We are extremely concerned about these system failures in contro," he said.

"We have over 100 examples of problems with the new system and this is inevitably resulting in delays to fire appliances arriving at fires and other emergencies.

"This shambles is resulting in unnecessary risks to both the public and to the firefighters attending these incidents.”

Assistant chief fire officer Paul Hill admitted there had been "teething problems" with the new system and said the brigade was putting "significant resources" into solving the problems.

"We have not missed a single incident or failed to mobilise to an incident since the switch-over and the public should be reassured that if they dial 999 we will respond as we always have.

"At no point was our 999 service to the public offline.

Mr Hill said the operations room had been able to deal with emergencies.

“We always anticipated some early teething problems despite the fact that exhaustive tests were carried out before the system went live, but of course some issues only came to light when used in a live environment," he said.

"We are now putting significant resources into finding solutions so the system will work as well as we know it can."