AMBULANCE officials have backed controversial plans to close a control room.

The North-East Ambulance Service will press ahead with plans to close the ambulance control room in Ladgate Lane, Middlesbrough, and centralise services on Tyneside.

It will mean creating a large regional 999 call centre in Monkton, near Hebburn, South Tyneside.

It will be linked to the service's headquarters in Newcastle.

The change is meant to make the region "disaster-proof", so that in the event of one ambulance control centre being put out of action, the other can provide full 999 services.

Two alternatives, one from Cleveland Police Authority and the other from an MP and a developer for a business park in Wynyard, near Stockton, were rejected by the service.

Chief executive Simon Featherstone said: "I am absolutely convinced that these changes will lead to better services for patients and the public."

Middlesbrough councillor Barry Coppinger, the chairman of Cleveland Joint Emergency Planning Committee, vowed to fight the closure of Ladgate Lane control room.

He said: "We must do all that we can to stop this happening.

Teesside is too important to become an outpost of Tyneside."

He pointed out that a wealth of local knowledge would be lost if the Middlesbrough control room closed, and said: "There is a lack of appreciation of the situation on Teesside, which has a high concentration of petro-chemical sites and a population of about half a million."