Plans revealed for new £14.2m Shropshire ambulance base off the A5

The new Shrewsbury hub will be the base for more than 50 ambulances and over 500 workers.

The ambulance service said that the facility will be at Emstrey Bank, just off the A5, with a planning application set to be submitted in the coming weeks.

The service has been searching for a site for a new Shrewsbury base for several years.

The current base is on Mercian Close, off Longden Road in the town.

Back in 2023 the service said a new site for the base was a “top priority”, amid concerns locally over its proximity to the nearby Meole Brace School and The Priory School.

Speaking to Shrewsbury Town Council in 2023, West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) said the lease on the Mercian Close base ends in 2027 and was not expected to be renewed.

Now the service has confirmed the brand new site for the town.

It said the purpose-built centre will meet the latest ‘Net Zero’ requirements, and will “future proof ambulance provision within the county for the next 30 years”.

A statement from WMAS said: “It has capacity for over 500 staff, roughly double the capacity of the current site in Longden Road.

“It will allow for over 50 ambulances to be based there, with expanded on site fleet maintenance and ‘make ready’ provision for preparing the ambulances.

“Based on the learning from other hub developments, there are expanded, purpose built training facilities as well as better accommodation for staff when they are on a break during their shift.”

WMAS’ operational support services director, Craig Cooke, said: “This is a real step change in the provision we are providing for the community in Shropshire with a significant development that will meet the needs of local people for years to come.

“We acknowledged some time ago that we needed to move from our current site, but such a large scale development does take time, not just finding the right location, but also the funding for it.

“The site meets the latest planning requirements with a BREEAM Excellent Rating which looks at the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of buildings. The site will be fully electric vehicle enabled for the future as well.”

WMAS’ Shropshire senior operations manager, Will Gould, added: “Talking to staff, they are very excited about the move. It will be a considerable upgrade on what we have at the moment with better facilities as well as better resilience.

“From a public perspective, it will give us an excellent point with which to access the road network in Shropshire which can only help us get to patients more quickly than we do currently.

“It obviously means that we will no longer be in a residential area which I am sure will also be popular with local people.”

Speaking about the move Mr Gould added: “The current location of where our Shrewsbury hub is, is not ideal. We know that and we know the frustrations of the local residents in the area with our siren noise, but also the congestion that sometimes our vehicles cause and staff coming to work.

“So we have taken our time, but we have taken our time because we wanted to find the right location for the new make ready facility. We didn’t want to be in the same position we are in now and causing frustration to the local residents, we are here to help you and support you when you need us and we don’t want to cause you frustrations.

“So the new location is ideally placed to be able to respond to the public, but also for our staff to get to work. We have a lot of staff that work at the hub and we know that the extra cars on the road network around the current site is causing some issues. That won’t be the case when we move to our new location.

“The new hub is net zero and it is built for the future so there is space for future growth, so if we have more staff at the new facility we can cope with that.

“Our staff come to work, they do an incredible job every single day. They work long hours and it is really important that they have a breakout area that they can fully relax on their meal breaks, so that they feel refreshed and then can respond to the public again.

“We have got quiet areas, we have got areas where they can socialise together, but the overall facilities at the new site are much better than the current arrangements that the staff have got and this is only going to a better service that we provide for the local public and working together with the wider NHS.”

Shrewsbury hub project manager Chris Phillips added: “The new site is carefully selected alongside key road networks around the Shropshire area and that means we will reduce our lost response time in travelling through heavily congested residential areas to reach patients sooner.”

“The new make ready facility is reflective of the growth that we need to provide into the Shropshire area and in turn means that we have a suitable area that we can provide more operational resources to respond to more patients in an emergency.

“We accept that the location of our current ambulance facility we have significantly outgrown in all aspects and that has caused challenges in the local community that we are currently based within but by moving to a bespoke, purpose-built, state-of-the-art facility just off Emstrey Bank in Shrewsbury we intend to resolve those issues.

“We are really grateful to be supported by the local authority and councillors within the areas that we are looking work that have supported us in being able to ensure that we can have the right road infrastructure on the Emstrey Bank site that we propose to build on and that we have the support of all the local councillors and in the wider healthcare economy in Shropshire.”