MORE than 2,000 readers have now backed the Worcester News' campaign to save the city's ambulance control centre.

Names have been flooding in by post and online calling for West Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust to rethink its plans to shut the Bransford Emergency Operations Centre.

The consultation on the plans is due to end in just over a week, on Monday, October 1, and the trust will make its final decision in November.

online petition - click now!

So far 2,005 people have signed our petition and today we urge those who have not already done so, to add their name before 5pm on Wednesday, September 26 when the petition will close.

People are concerned that Worcestershire and Herefordshire patients will suffer if the service is moved to Brierley Hill and Stafford.

Alison and Olaf Twiehaus, of Comer Road, St John's, Worcester, are among those to have signed the petition in recent days. They said: "Costcutting gone mad. Why close? It's a ridiculous reason for risking lives."

And David Bradley, of Leigh Sinton Road, Malvern, said: "I shudder to think what my medical problems might be now if the ambulance had been coming from outside the district with possible traffic hold ups at peak times and the lack of local knowledge."

The trust wants to close the Bransford centre, along with one at Shrewsbury, and create two regional centres, at Brierley Hill and Stafford. There would also be a support centre at Leamington Spa.

It says the reconfiguration would lead to a safer, more resilient service for the public and insists the local knowledge of staff at Bransford will not be lost.

Other recent comments received from members of the public include: "To move it would be very wrong and also dangerous," "We would be losing local knowledge of this area if the call centres went elsewhere. I think response times may suffer too," and "The importance of local knowledge in directing the emergency services cannot be stressed highly enough."

A spokesman for the West Midlands Ambulance NHS Trust said: "We're in a public consultation and we want to hear from as many people as possible. We have already had around 120 meetings with the different stakeholders by the end of the consultation period. We have had other petitions and we welcome them as much as we do this one. All the information will be considered by the board."To add your name to the petition fill in the coupon on this page or log on to www.worcesternews.co.uk Staff at the control centre are fighting the plans and urge people to log on to their special website www.saveyoureoc.co.uk and view the consultation and their objections.