THE response to our Keep It Local campaign to save Worcester's ambulance control room has been incredible.

As we went to press last night almost 450 readers had signed our petition calling for the control room at Bransford to remain open. We are receiving more signatures - both by post and online - every day.

Today we speak to the people who operate the control room. They are in full support of our campaign and against the West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust's plans to have just two call centres in Brierley Hill and Stafford - with a smaller support office in Leamington Spa - serving the entire region.

The trust issued a robust defence of its plans in these pages yesterday. It says centralised services will make it easier to deal with major incidents such as terrorist attacks. It says its plans will improve the service received by patients and increase the number of call takers on duty. Our concern - and the point of our campaign - is that closing Bransford, along with another control room in Shropshire, will lead to a dilution in local knowledge. And that has the potential to be dangerous.

Satellite navigation was of little use to the emergency services during the recent floods. Local knowledge was vital in planning new routes for ambulances away from flooded roads. While no redundancies are promised, the reality is that many of the people who work at Bransford will not be able to transfer to the new centres. And that means less local knowledge. The public view on this proposal is clear. The trust would do well to take note of it.