Well, I hope I'm wrong good egg, but there seems to be a parallel with this idea with what has happened at The Met Office.
Years ago, there were observers and forecasters in situ at various locations across The U.K. The quality of observation and prediction was very good.
Then, everyone de-camped to a bunker down in The West Country and all the 'local-knowledge' which aided the task was gone. In spite of all the 'remote-sensing' kit they now have, the content of the observations and accuracy of the forecasts are not a patch on what was available previously.
On a different note, I have never driven an articulated HGV and admire those who can, but in the last few months I've seen 3 of them stuck in the middle of a Cheshire village because they were relying on their 'new-technology', rather than looking out of the cab windows.
Hopefully, for the sake of those who will be tasked with operating this, I'll be proved wrong.However, this seems another part of an insidious erosion of the responsibilities and skill-sets of the ATCO profession, which began before the headline I mentioned above was written. Many of those involved in these decisions have little or no experience at the 'sharp-end' of aviation.
It has been discussed elsewhere on PPRuNe and described as "A solution looking for a problem".......Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope it isn't.
Wasn't it one of The Red Barron's right-hand men who, during a tour of Swanwick, made a remark that it was 'nothing more than a call-centre', or words to that effect?