New ambulance station

The modern hub off Chelmer Valley Road replaces the 1950s building in Coval Lane and provides a bigger and better base to respond to patients.

Jenny Tolhurst, Lord-Lieutenant of Essex, officially opened the new facility, which provides a hub to more than 200 East of England Ambulance Service NHS Trust (EEAST) staff in Mid Essex.

She was joined by MPs, councillors, NHS colleagues, Healthwatch, EEAST staff and volunteers to celebrate the state-of-the-art facility, which was three years in the planning and was built by Marden Homes.

The new site was built as part of a deal with housing developers in exchange for the Trust’s old site in Coval Lane.

The 24/7 hub has a large training space, staff rest area, locker and shower facilities, wellbeing room, staff library and computer room, and medicine management facility. It has a make-ready facility where ambulances and response cars are cleaned, prepared and stocked for front-line duties.

Robert Morton, Chief Executive of EEAST, said: “I want to thank everyone for joining us today as we celebrate this great milestone. This new building gives our staff better facilities to work from and a better base to respond to our patients.

“The opening of this excellent new ambulance hub is the culmination of a lot of hard work by many people.”

The new facility is part of EEAST’s estate transformation plan to create a network of modern hubs and community ambulance stations across the region over the next five years.

Sandra Chick, Senior Locality Manager for Mid Essex, who is based at the station, added: “The new hub is significantly bigger than our previous site. The facilities at Coval Lane were no longer fit for purpose for the number of vehicles we now put on the road and we had outgrown that site.

“I’d like to thank the project team as we managed the move with no disruption to our service and that is testament to their hard work and dedication.”