We deliver petition to save ambulance centre

Reporter Sally Jones hand-delivered the comments of 2,092 people to Millennium Point in Brierley Hill today - the day the ambulance service trust ends its consultation.

The trust has been consulting over the past three months on plans to close both Bransford and Shrewsbury Emergency Operations Centres, and create two regional centres at Brierley Hill and Stafford. There would also be a support centre at Leamington Spa.

The trust's regional head of communications Murray MacGregor received the petition, as chief executive Anthony Marsh was not at the HQ yesterday.

Mr MacGregor said: "We are happy to receive this petition and all of the comments. They will be given full consideration by the board before they come to make their final decision.

"All comments and alternative proposals have been welcomed and we are pleased that people have engaged in the consultation."

Mr MacGregor said a petition containing more than 16,000 names from people in Shropshire had also been handed in to the trust.

The trust will make its final decision on the future of the call centres at a meeting in Walsall on Wednesday, November 28.

The petition was delivered on the day the trust merged with Staffordshire Ambulance Service, creating an even bigger West Midlands Ambulance Service, which was formed in July 2006 after a merger between Hereford and Worcester, Coventry and Warwickshire, Shropshire and West Midlands Ambulance Service.

Trust chief executive, Anthony Marsh, said: "The road to merger has not been an easy one but through the magnificent work of staff in both Trusts it has been achieved far sooner than could have been hoped.

"The spread of best practice between the two organisations has undoubtedly helped to ease the process. Staff in Staffordshire already work closely with colleagues in WMAS and I have no reason to believe that this will not continue and indeed be strengthened."