The public consultation into the potential closure of the Welshpool Air Ambulance base is to start later than expected.

This comes after a meeting of the Emergency Ambulance Services Committee – who will be leading the consultation into the controversial plans – decided that further steps were needed before public engagement could begin.

Initial plans seemed to suggest that the consultation would be finished around January. However, it was decided that as there was such a high level of public interest that more preparation is needed.

The Welshpool base – along with another in Caernarfon – could close and would see the Wales Air Ambulance Charity running operations from a new North Wales base.

But this has sparked a massive community response, with petitions to abandon the plans gaining thousands of signatures.

The chief executive of Powys Teaching Health Board, Carol Shillabeer, raised concerns in the meeting about the initial timeframe and said that the modelling data released last week – which has informed the proposed closure the Welshpool base – needed to be simplified and made easier to understand for public consumption.

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In the meeting it was revealed that, due to the public interest in the proposals, the data had been released earlier than planned and hadn’t had the usual levels of “due diligence to bring it forward”.

This meant that all parties agreed that the eight-week public consultation should not begin until mid-December at the earliest, and would take into account the Christmas break.

Chief ambulance services commissioner Stephen Harrhy said that there had been a “significant level of correspondence” about the potential closure and that the committee running the consultation would need time to make sure that there would be a “robust engagement process” that would allow the public to make their feelings known and be well informed.

Mr Harrhy said the consultation would need to address a number of issues including response times, the need for potential extra resources, weather conditions and questions about the modelling data.

Representatives from the Wales Air Ambulance said at the meeting that the proposals were a “once in a decade opportunity” and would allow the charity to meet more “underutilised” need across the country by allowing them to perform more missions at night.