THE closure of Worcester’s ambulance control centre, now confirmed for next Monday, has been in the pipeline since last November.

It was then, regular readers will remember, that the West Midlands Ambulance Service took the decision to axe the Bransford call centre despite huge public opposition to the proposal.

More than 2,000 readers of this newspaper signed a petition calling for the centre to remain open.

Unfortunately, their views were dismissed as one response because that is how petitions are treated under the current rules of what is known as public consultation.

We have said before we felt the consultation was a sham. We had the same view about the recent post office closures.

That is not the fault of ambulance or Post Office bosses – they are ticking all the right boxes under the current rules. But that does not make it right and it is an issue the Government should address.

Our opposition to the principle of closing Bransford remains firm. If there is any good news to come out of an announcement of a closure date it is that there are to be no job losses.

Our role – and that of all those who opposed this closure – is now to monitor the effect on ambulance response times locally.

We maintain the closure of Bransford is bad news for people in Worcestershire. Time will tell if we are wrong – and it would be far better for anyone in need of an ambulance if we were.