Malmesbury's Maternity Unit is being forced to close again after health bosses failed to recruit enough staff for the second time in six months.

The unit is to temporarily close between June 1 and September 1 because a recruitment campaign by West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust which manages maternity services in Kennet and North Wiltshire failed to attract a single candidate.

Malmesbury should be staffed by six full-time and one part-time midwife, but at the moment is missing two full-time nurses and the part-timer. Only last December the unit was shut for six weeks because of staff shortages - one week after a Gazette campaign had helped it and the Devizes unit gain a reprieve until a wider review was carried out.

Expectant mother 33-year-old Karen Kingston of Priory Vale,

Swindon, was looking forward to having her second baby at the Malmesbury unit after her son Jack was born there three years ago.

She said: "I think it's a very sneaky way of getting the number of births down at the Malmesbury unit. It's a shame for the midwives because they are really great.

"The maternity unit at Malmesbury is lovely. It doesn't feel like a hospital and you get to know the midwives well.

"When I had Jack I had problems feeding him and the Malmesbury midwives gave me a lot of support.

"It is a shame the health bosses have not honoured their commitment to keep the unit open for 12 months. They should do more to keep the unit open because it has a very good reputation."

Mothers currently booked for delivery at Malmesbury during the three month closure are being asked to go to either Greenways Maternity Unit at Chippenham Community Hospital, the Princess Anne Wing at the Royal United Hospital in Bath or Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

Ante-natal and post-natal appointments will continue at the Malmesbury unit.

Maternity campaigner Sarah Newman had her two sons Oscar, four, and ten-month-old Aaron at the Malmesbury unit.

She said: "If this had been handled better by the care trust they could've avoided closure.

"It is damaging to the reputation of the maternity unit and demoralising for the midwives. Getting to Chippenham hospital from Swindon is a 40-minute drive for a mother in labour and that is not on."

Mrs Newman added that the unit's closure last January had created an air of uncertainty which explained why many midwives might not want to work in Malmesbury.

County and district councillor John Thomson said: "It is not surprising that we have a shortage of midwives when you consider the way the primary care trust has treated the staff at Malmesbury Hospital over the last three years. They have had five months to sort this out and they haven't."

Defending the shutdown, Jenny Barker, director of operations at West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust, said: "The shortage of midwives in this area has left us with no choice but to take these measures to ensure mothers and babies are not at risk."

Vicky Tinsley, manager of Malmesbury's maternity unit, said advertisements for midwives had been placed in trade journals and the internet but without success because fewer people were moving to the area.