Criticism of 999 closure

Ambulance service bosses have been told they are treating Shropshire as a "second class citizen" with plans to close the emergency control centre at Shrewsbury.

The claim was made last night at a packed public meeting at the Shirehall which overwhelmingly rejected the proposal being made by the West Midlands Ambulance Service Trust.

It is consulting on a move to cut the number of control rooms from five to three.

The Shrewsbury control at Abbey Foregate would close along with the centre at Worcester. There would be two large regional centres in Brierley Hill and Stafford.

County councillor Roger Evans, a board member of the former, and smaller, West Midlands Ambulance Trust, said there was no-one to argue for Shropshire on the new organisation's board.

He said Shropshire was the largest inland county in England but it faced being left without a control centre and no representation.

Councillor Evans said Shropshire was being treated like a "second class citizen" and he felt the decision to close the Shrewsbury centre had already been made.

Other speakers echoed his feelings. Paul Milner, who helped collect names for a 16,000 signature petition, said the board was not listening to people and warned that the planned changes would put lives at risk.

And Sarah Hunter, a community responder, said that vital local knowledge would be lost by closing the Shrewsbury control room.

"Our group of volunteers is saving lives and we all feel very strongly that without this local knowledge our job will be much harder," she said.

Another concern which speakers frequently raised was that of Shropshire ambulances being sent to out-of-county calls and which they felt would happen more often under the proposed reorganisation.

Trust chief executive, Anthony Marsh, said the reorganisation was being proposed because "current arrangements" were not safe or robust and there was the risk of the centres being unable to cope with a major emergency in the region.

Another public meeting will be held tomorrow at Telford & Wrekin Civic Offices at 7pm. A final decision will be made by the Trust board in October.

By Dave Morris