Paramedics are searching for a new ambulance base because it is difficult to reach 999 calls quickly from their station at Oxford's Churchill Hospital.

Managers at Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust are searching for a new city home nearer to the ring road.

They claim the narrow roads surrounding the current station, off Old Road, Headington, slow paramedic response times to emergency calls.

As well as improving ambulance access, moving to a new site would reduce traffic in Headington and allow the old base to be redeveloped for patient services.

Trust chief executive John Nichols said: "Having our base in the middle of a residential area is not the best place.

"We would like our principal base to be on the edge of Oxford.

"In our view, it takes longer to get out of the Churchill in a proper response than somewhere on the ring road.

"We need a good launching pad into the city and out into the surrounding country.

"Although our ambulances are positioned at strategic points across the county, Oxford is our principal base and there is a lot of vehicle movement as staff come to refuel and have a break."

The trust looked at the former NHS supplies buildings on Watlington Road, Cowley, as a possible alternative, but decided they were not suitable because of traffic congestion.

Planning officers at the city council have suggested the Oxford Business Park in Cowley could provide a suitable site.

Mr Nichols said: "We are currently in the process of doing the necessary consultation work to satisfy the NHS that we need to move, so it won't happen overnight.

"It's important from our perspective that what we finally do is right."

Mr Nichols said the ambulance base would need to be moved, even if plans to merge Oxfordshire trust with neighbouring services in Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Northamptonshire went ahead.