A NEW communications mast could be erected at Bromyard Town Football Club, close to the current Vodafone mobile phone mast.

It would be part of a national digital communications network for the country's ambulance service.

Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service is already using the system, but the new mast would improve coverage in the Bromyard area.

The digital service enables data about a patient's condition to be transmitted from ambulance monitors to a hospital consultant, who can authorise paramedics to deliver life-saving drugs. It should also improve ambulance response times and provide better links with police and other emergency services.

O2 Airwave already provides a communication service to police forces nationwide and won a bid to provide digital voice and data communications for ambulance trusts this summer.

It has submitted a Telecoms Prior Notification to Herefordshire Council for the mast. The council will determine whether a planning application is needed.

Tony Haverfield, secretary of Bromyard Town FC, said the new mast was not a commercial mobile phone mast like the Vodafone, for which the club receives ground rent.

Bromyard Town Council chairman Gill Churchill said she welcomed anything that improved ambulance response times. However, she stressed that the mast would not be a suitable replacement for the town's ambulance station, which is currently under threat.

She said hundreds of people had already signed a petition to keep the station open.

"People don't want it to move out of Bromyard," she said. "It would be an erosion of our services."

Mrs Churchill was due to meet with Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Service's chief executive Russel B Hamilton yesterday (Thursday) to discuss the station's future.