Relatives of a pensioner who died on the pavement near a closed ambulance station have warned 999 chiefs not to try to plug gaps in emergency services with volunteers or amateurs.

Ambulance bosses have launched an appeal to pay for a defibrillator so volunteers could bring heart attack victims back to life in the town where Alfred 'Pip' Parry died last July.

But although his death sparked the appeal, Mr Parry's relatives and friends said the service cannot rely on first-aiders from the community and instead it needs more trained paramedics to cover rural market towns and surrounding villages.

There was an outcry in Ledbury, Herefordshire, after 12-year-old Gemma Hill was left trying to save her 81-year-old uncle who collapsed on his way home from town less than 100 yards from an ambulance station that was locked up at 10am on a Monday.

By the time paramedics arrived from Bromyard, about 10 miles away, the pensioner had died on the pavement in front of his house surrounded by family and friends.

His death highlighted flaws in the system because it later emerged 999 operators could not get hold of the local community first responders and no one knew the nearby swimming pool and GP surgery had defibrillator machines.

But locals were mainly furious about how long it took the ambulance to arrive and next week local manager Derek Laird will be asked to explain to Hereford Council's health scrutiny committee what happened on the morning of July 28.

Now, less than a week before the meeting, ambulance chiefs have asked the public to raise £600 towards the cost of a £1,200 defibrillator so there is one available to be used in the town 24 hours a day.

They said after Mr Parry's death, they joined forces with the British Heart Foundation to draw up a defibrillator register and the charity has agreed to pay half the cost of a new one.

But Gemma's mother Jo, 35, who had to watch helplessly as her young daughter carried out heart massage she had learned in school, said ambulance chiefs could not rely on the volunteers to plug a shortage of professional 999 staff in rural areas.

She said: "There have been lots of little things happening and they are all for the good, but they cannot replace a manned ambulance station.

"I know Pip would think it was fantastic. He was a real people person and would be all for anything that helped save lives.

"But at the end of the day, there will be times when it will still boil down to how long people have to wait for an ambulance.

"It might not have made any difference in Pip's case but people are saying that next time it could be a kid with a severed artery who needs to get to hospital fast.

"In those kind of circumstances a trained volunteer with a machine will not be good enough.

"I'm worried the ambulance service will say all these things are happening now so they don't have to provide any extra cover, when clearly they do."

Horrified neighbours and passers-by claim it took at least 25 minutes for the 999 crews to arrive after Mr Parry collapsed.

West Midlands Ambulance Service, however, said although it was stretched that day, it took 17 minutes for the crew to reach Mr Parry.

It said ambulance stations were locked when paramedics were on the road and added that community manned defibrillators had saved many lives in other areas but were not designed to be a very early response, and would not replace proper ambulance cover.