SHOEBURY ambulance station is set to close next month.

Despite previous assurances it would remain, the East of England Ambulance Service has now confirmed the Campfield Road site will be turned into a response post from November 26.

This will mean rather than a permanent station with a dedicated vehicle and crews the station will become a 45-minute rest stop or place for short-term parking between emergencies with a toilet and tea and coffee facilities.

A spokesman for the ambulance service said: “The ambulance service is committed to providing a continued good level of response to the Shoebury area, with the site continuing to be used in its current form until November 26, after which time a response post will be established.”

Save Southend NHS has described it as a “glorified parking space” and will protest on November 16.

Spokesman Katie Sheehan said: “This purely comes down to the fact the ambulance service cannot meet its response time targets so the ambulance service is concentrating the few resources it has to achieve those responses in urban areas, while leaving people in the fringes at greater risk of harm for performances statistics. It really is a postcode lottery.”

Councillor Tony Cox, Tory group leader, said: “This station is absolutely crucial. It is needed in the area and closing it could lead to lives being lost.”

He has tabled a motion for Thursday’s council meeting, but the matter may not be discussed until November.

Councillor Trevor Harp, who oversees health in Southend, said: “At this stage, all I can say is that we are in communication with the clinical commissioning group who are talking to the ambulance service regarding our views on this.

“Hopefully we will have more information soon but I can assure you that communications are happening as we speak and there have been some very robust conversations about this.

“There was no council involvement in this, it has come out of the blue for us as well which is not how it should have been done. This is purely an ambulance service decision.”