Welshpool’s mayor has penned a letter to the Air Ambulance to express “concern and disappointment” at the closure of the charity’s base in the town.

The mayor of the town in which the soon to be closed Wales Air Ambulance base is located, has sent a letter to the charity on behalf of Welshpool Town Council and the wider community.

Welshpool mayor, Cllr Nick Howells, first raised the idea of penning a letter to the charity in response to the decision made by the Welsh NHS’s Joint Commissioning Committee, made up of lay people and the chief executives of Welsh health boards voted to close the bases and merge them into a new site in North Wales at a recent town council meeting.

The meeting took place just a day after the decision to close to base was made on April 23.

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In the letter, he wrote: “I am writing on behalf of Welshpool Town Council to express our deep concern and disappointment at the decision to close the Welshpool Air Ambulance station at Welshpool Airport.

“This service has literally been a lifeline to residents in the remote areas of Mid Wales. There is strong consensus within the community that this decision was made some time ago and that the public consultation was basically meaningless.

“A great number of people including myself have donated to the Air Ambulance charity frequently over previous years. There have been many claims on social media that a considerable number of donators will no longer donate to the charity if this service is removed.

“It has come to my attention that there is the possibility that there is a campaign to save Welshpool and Caernarfon Air Ambulance bases who have launched a legal challenge to the ‘fundamentally flawed decision taken’ by the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee (JCC) last week to close both bases.

“If a judicial challenge becomes a reality I can categorically state that it will receive the support of Welshpool Town council I believe and the vast majority of the community of Welshpool.

“We beg you to reconsider.”