The Wiltshire Emergency Services building project broke ground in 2001 when the existing Llewellyn Building was demolished and the WES building was begun in its place. The two-storey building at London Road, Devizes was home to all three emergency services' control rooms, as well as a conference room, staff rooms, offices and facilities. The
Emergency Communications Centre was also intended to act as a base in the event of a
major incident. The design intention of the centre was that all information would be shared instantly between the three services and that they could collaborate easily if the need arose. However, the collaboration was not without challenges, including a demand from the
Fire Brigades Union to have their section partitioned off from the rest of the centre before they were willing to move in. Eventually, both the ambulance and fire service departed to different control centres, primarily aiming to save money. New and improved communication technology was cited as a reason it was no longer necessary to have all services controlled from one place when
Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service moved out of the building in 2013.
Great Western Ambulance Service was originally allocated a quarter of the control room, where their operators wore dark green jumpsuits with green epaulettes. In March 2013 their operations ceased at the centre, with all emergency call handling transferred to
Bristol as part of a cost-saving drive intended to save the service £700,000. Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service were also allocated a quarter of the control room; their operators wore red shirts with black epaulettes, with bars denoting rank. For much of the period the fire service were present in the centre, plans were in place as part of the
FiReControl initiative, introduced by the
Labour government, which would see the Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service control room relocated from Devizes to
Taunton alongside fire services covering Gloucestershire, Avon, Somerset, Dorset and Devon and Cornwall. While these plans were eventually scrapped, in an effort to save money Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service departed the joint centre in 2013.
Wiltshire Police originally occupied half of the control room; their operators wore traditional police white shirt and black tie with epaulettes reading 'Emergency Call Operator' and a bar for Senior operators. Operators were supervised by Force Operations Room Inspectors, who were ranked police Inspectors. There were roughly 80 operators split into teams, then workstations, who worked variable shifts, non-stop, all year round. The caller was put through to the workstation assigned to the location of their incident, the call operators having a detailed knowledge of the area their workstation's area covered. After the departure of the ambulance and fire services in 2013 the police were the only remaining organisation operating from the centre. In 2014 Wiltshire Police completed a £2 million refurbishment of the centre, bringing both emergency (999) and non-emergency (101) call handling into the same building. Prior to this the
police non-emergency Force Contact Centre had been in a separate building. == Other projects ==