VOLUNTEERS with Machynlleth’s Red Cross First Aid Group have been left “devastated” after charity bosses disbanded the team.

The group was disbanded on 27 March and Karen Yorke, the group leader, told the Cambrian News that the decision had come as a shock to volunteers.

It will leave the Dyfi Valley without a Red Cross First Aid Group, although Karen said volunteers would still be available in the local area.

She said: “The group was told that for financial and logistical reasons the Red Cross will no longer accept requests for coverage of annual local first aid duties in the Tywyn and Machynlleth areas.”

And she added: “One would have thought or hoped that an organisation like the Red Cross would have had more respect for those who had volunteered for so many years.

“They obviously saw no need to enter into any formal process of discussion with us, an incredibly arrogant way to treat your volunteers when you consider it.

“The fact that an organisation built on its volunteers and its traditions for care and support could behave in such a way is astonishing.”

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