THE future of Machynlleth’s ambulance crew is secure, town councillors have heard.

Heather Ransom, the ambulance operations manager for Powys, assu­red councillors that a crew based at Machynlleth would continue to operate in the town and said that diverting the Machynlleth crew to other areas was now a last resort and happened less than it used to.

Criticism of the ambulance service in the town previously was focused on the fact that the local crew was often asked to cover other areas, leaving Machynlleth without a dedicated crew.

While Ms Ransom said that happened less frequently now, figures for the period between September 2017 and January 2018 showed that on average there are only two calls a day in the SY20 postcode area, meaning the crew was used to att­end to other nearby incidents.

But she stressed that the Machyn­lleth crew was now the “last resort” in terms of providing cover in Newtown and Welshpool, with other crews expected to provide cover ahead of the Machynlleth crew.

However, Ms Ransom said: “Although they start and finish in Machynlleth, they won’t stay in Machynlleth all day.

“Although they’re only answering two calls a day, in terms of support across Powys we couldn’t do without them.

“I don’t think they come across as much.”

Ms Ransom said the figures for the five months up to January this year showed that the Machynlleth crew had covered jobs in the Betsi Cadwaladr area just 12 times, while attending 25 incidents in the Hywel Dda area, with the vast majority of their calls being in the Powys area.

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