AN ambulance that parks in New Milton to be able to respond to emergencies on time may have to move because the rattle of its diesel engine is keeping residents awake at night.

Brian Taylor of Melrose Court, Ashley, complained to New Milton Town Council that the South Central Ambul-ance Service vehicle is stati-oned at the entrance to the rugby club next to his home.

“It keeps us awake,” he said.

He claimed that at 12.45am one morning a paramedic was discovered sleeping on duty “in his rattly old van”.

“The bloke said he needed to leave his engine running.”

And Mr Taylor claimed: “It’s so noisy it goes right through the house.”

The solution, he said, is for the ambulance to relocate to Caird Avenue near Tescos where there are no houses.

Mark Weatherhead, ambulance operations manager for south west New Forest attended the council’s amenities committee meeting.

He said at any one time there were five ambulances and one response car on call in the whole of the Forest and to achieve the target response times set by government they needed to be parked at strategic points.

The most serious Category A emergencies have to be met within eight minutes and Category B calls in 19 minutes. Response cars initially go to Category A calls while ambulances, which have slower speeds, will go to Category Bs.

New Milton Rugby Club is well placed for an ambulance, he said. “It’s good for New Milton and it can get back to Lymington at a push.”

After listening to Mr Taylor’s complaints, he said: “The biggest problem we have is the equipment on the vehicles. There’s four banks of batteries and they are charging up life-saving equipment all the time.”

Committee chairman Cllr Goff Beck praised the ambulance service for its fine work and asked Mr Weath-erhead to consider relocating the vehicle to Caird Avenue.

Mr Taylor rounded off the discussion saying: “I dialled 999 saying, ‘I don’t want an ambulance, I want you to move one’.”