Wootton Bassett has got behind the Gazette's campaign to save the Malmesbury Maternity Unit.

Town councillor and mother-of-two Kerrie Dixon has been distributing posters and petitions to the town shops, and has already had a good response.

She said: "A lot of people in Wootton Bassett don't realise that they are entitled to use the maternity unit at Malmesbury as an alternative to the Great Western Hospital.

"It is a really valuable community resource, as a lot of people prefer to go to a smaller, more friendly unit than going to a big hospital. If I had not had complicated pregnancies with my children I would have liked to go there.

"It is very important to people all over north Wiltshire, and I am encouraged to see councillors and MPs from all political parties getting together with the local community to try and save the unit."

Both Devizes and Malmesbury Maternity Units have been threatened with closure because the PCT says not enough mother's use them.

But the determined and well supported Gazette campaign shows how valuable they are, and Coun Dixon countered this argument by saying that women in Wootton Bassett were not even told that they could use the Malmesbury Maternity Unit.

Now Coun Dixon is planning on joining a group of midwives and mothers who are travelling to the Houses of Parliament at the end of the month to protest against the closures.