PLANS to merge local ambulance services to create a super-trust are to be opposed by politicians in North Yorkshire.

The merger proposal stems from the Department of Health's plan to create 11 health trusts serving the whole of the country, which will soon be out for consultation.

It could lead to the setting up of a Yorkshire and Humberside trust, taking in a vast urban and rural area.

But North Yorkshire County Council believes such a move would take operational resources away from rural areas such as the one it represents.

According to Councillor John Blackie, chairman of the authority's scrutiny of health committee, it would mean lives being put at risk through longer response times to emergencies and the loss of vital local knowledge by ambulance staff

Coun Blackie represents the Upper Dales division on the county council, including Wensleydale, Swaledale and Arkengarthdale - some of the most rural areas of England.

And the authority overwhelmingly backed his motion to make the county's opposition to the scheme plain.

Coun Blackie said: "Seven years ago we went through a merger of ambulance trusts when North Yorkshire's ambulance service joined with Teesside and East Yorkshire to form Tenyas.

"All the arguments to support that merger will no doubt be rolled out again this time, but our experience paints a different picture."

He said that in rural areas, Tenyas had failed to meet national standards for answering emergency calls, as the ambulance services own statistics make clear.

And he asked: "Will an ambulance trust based in the region deal as equitably with Rosedale as it might with Rotherham, or Swaledale as it might with Sheffield, or Whitby as it might with Wakefield?

"I think not."

"When an organisation has important national targets to meet then it will concentrate its operational resources on urban centres of population."