North Wiltshire MP James Gray has spoken out against plans to merge Wiltshire's ambulance service with its neighbours in Avon and Gloucestershire.

Last week the Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire Strategic Health Authority said it would be consulting on the possibility of merging the management of the three services or merging them completely in a bid to cut costs and improving response times.

But Mr Gray was adamant this was a bad idea. He met Tim Skelton, the acting chief executive of the Wiltshire Ambulance Service, on Friday and told him he would be wholly opposed to any such regionalisation of the service.

"Not only would Wiltshire be lost in an amalgamation which would most certainly lead to dominance by Bristol, but we would also be wasting the huge investment in the call out centre in Devizes, which is already threatened because of Mr Prescott's regionalisation of the fire service," he said.

Mr Gray said Wiltshire had little in common with Gloucestershire, and even less with Bristol and Avon. "I will take a lot of convincing that there is any merit in amalgamating with them," he said. "There is something called the strategic health authority covering Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire which seems to me to fulfil no particular useful function at all."