Essex fire headquarters could move to the Braintree or Maldon area as part of a £20 million revamp of the service

A dedicated training centre to attract more officers, including more women, plus a computerised incident system and faster response times could all be spin-offs of the planned changes.

A new station for Stansted Airport and three rebuilt ones in the rest of the county are also on the cards.

The jewel in the crown is set to be a new headquarters, earmarked for an as yet unconfirmed site closer to the centre of the county than the existing one in Brentwood.

"We would like to see it in the middle of Essex. Chelmsford is too high for land charges but we cannot rule out Maldon or Braintree," said Senior Divisional Officer Dave Blackett

The current Brentwood headquarters has "reached its capacity", said Mr Blackett, and may even be rebuilt "west of Maldon, somewhere where the land charges aren't too high".

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service has been planning the massive overhaul for more than a year, but a bid for Private Finance Initiative Funding (PFI) has just been officially supported by the Government.

"All we need now is to convince the Government it is the most cost-efficient way for our service to change," said Mr Blackett.

He said staff were "very excited" about the prospect of a total revamp, with the public benefiting from faster response times and more firefighters.

"We are hoping to computerise incidents, so we can get there faster and even start predicting future demand on resources.

"With increased training, we want to attract more retained staff as well, especially women," he said.

If the final plans for funding are approved, a full-time station at Stansted Airport could be built, and three stations at Tillingham, Old Harlow and Shoeburyness would be entirely rebuilt.

The new headquarters would, ideally, include a large training centre, replacing the five smaller ones used around Essex at present, an area for workshops and the main control centre for the county.