CRAVEN'S first joint base for emergency services is still on the cards although financing the venture is proving to be a sticking point.

Back in January The Craven Herald first highlighted the fact that talks had been taking place between the fire, ambulance and police to join forces at a single base in Settle. The idea was first mooted by the police who felt their existing premises in Duke Street was outdated for 21st century use.

"It is a good opportunity to explore partnership working and is a realistic project; not one that we will be talking about in 20 years time," Chief Inspector Tad Nowakowski had promised at the beginning of the year.

Tim Ralph, Craven group manager for the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service had said at the time that he was very encouraged by the commitment of all three emergency services in support of the project. All three chief officers of the services have given it the thumbs up.

"It will obviously be of benefit to the community to have all three services working together from the same premises," he said.

However, at last week's Craven Area Forum, hopes of the venture began to fade when Chief Insp Nowakowski raised the issue again. He said the project was still on the cards as far as North Yorkshire Police were concerned, but it was a question of money.

"We are still looking at having a joint premises with the fire and ambulance, but as you can imagine there are some serious financial implications to make that happen," he said. "We were looking at the ambulance station site and looked at knocking the whole building down and building a new one. That would cost a lot of money as you can appreciate.

"The final option is to convert the existing police station into a one-stop-shop because it is such a large building. There has already been interest shown from the local authorities and bodies such as Trading Standards," he said.

This has been happening in other police areas such as in Hawes, where it has worked well, but Settle's police station could not provide room for fire and ambulance as well.

However, he stressed that all was not totally lost with the possibility of a joint emergency services' venture and he still clung to the hope that it might happen.

"The stumbling block will be the cost - around £1million - which is a lot to find, although there would be a lot of financial savings to be made if it happened. However, I have written a report which has now gone to the chief constable. The executive is currently looking at the proposals to see if there is any future in it and we expect to have a decision one way or another within the next few weeks."