THE FIRST ever joint emergency services centre in Dorset opens today in Lyme Regis. Officials from police, fire and rescue and ambulance services will declare the new centre in Hill Road open at 10.30am, heralding a new era in the provision of emergency services in Lyme Regis. Police officers have left their old sta tion across the road - which looks set to be demolished to make way for housing - and will now share their premises with fire and rescue crew and visiting ambu lance crew. A police employee will now man the front desk at Lyme Regis six days a week, from 9am until 1pm - although police cannot yet say when the new post will begin. Police inspector Alan Jenkins said: "We are all extremely pleased to be moving to a new joint emergency centre that will better meet the needs of the community and our officers and promote even closer working with other emergency services." Fire and rescue crew have been using the new centre since April, after a long cold winter spent in the old wooden ambulance station at the back of the new centre - also set for demolition after being condemned. The centre now provides a home not only for the fire pump but the co-respon ders' car, which is forming a growing part of the fire and rescue team's service. Having been specially trained to use life saving techniques and de-fibrillating equipment, fire and rescue crew now attend life threatening shouts in Lyme Regis, if an ambulance will take longer than the standard ten minute call-out time. Sub officer in charge Virgil Turner said the six crew members who were trained co-responders had already been out on 61 shouts in 18 weeks, saving at least ten lives. The new centre provides Lyme's 11 fire and rescue crew members with new training equipment, showers and kitchen which visiting ambulance crew can use whenever they are in Lyme Regis. A shared rest room will enable officers from all three services to meet and relax together, but police offices - containing confidential information - will remain out of bounds to everyone except autho rised police personnel. Mr Turner said he and his colleagues were pleased with the new station. He said: "We're learning all the time from the ambulance crew that come in. We get to know the local police and understand more about what they do. It's great. We've got everything we need now." Chief executive of the Dorset ambu lance NHS trust Ken Wenman said: "The new centre has provided a great oppor tunity for us to replace the very basic standby building to one that is adequate for today's needs. "Joining the police and fire services under a single roof has also strength ened joint working at a local level, including the very successful trial of fire and co-responders to life threatening incidents. "We believe that this example of joint provision might well provide a blueprint for future co-location services."