The news that West Sussex Fire and Rescue and East Sussex Fire and Rescue who between them spent huge sums on combining their control centre have just fallen out is bad news for all Sussex residents. The early indications are that it is West Sussex that have walked away from the arrangement but until there is more information it is difficult to know what has happened. Whilst Sussex is a large area, there were huge opportunities for the two Fire and Rescue Services to work collaboratively and indeed along with many other people I believe that the merger of the two services would have been a success and the barrier to this was largely the attitude from West Sussex County Council who control their fire service.