Cutting Wolves speedway's first aid 'despicable'

The club owner said the charity had put the season 'in serious doubt' but he had thankfully found replacement cover from Solihull-based UK Life Medics. As a result, Wolves will still start their season as planned on March 23 with the Banks's Olympique.

"We've been having the services of the St John Ambulance Brigade for 30 years at Monmore Green," said Van Straaten. "The deal has always been that they supplied two ambulances – which we paid for – and first aid cover offered by volunteers. There's a minimum requirement of six, but we would have between 12 and 20 volunteers on some weeks."

Van Straaten – who holds an annual collection at the track for the charity – said he met officials annually to discuss any changes to health and safety, risk assessment and so on.

He said the club's draft fixture list had been accepted by the official with whom he normally dealt, but new regional event manager Julie Sadler emailed him on February 5 to say that ambulance cover would not be available.

"She said they could provide six first-aiders at a cost of £264 per event, but for this year only they would give us a 40 per cent discount," he said. "It's a commercial world. If they can get more money for the ambulances, then I have no problem in them sourcing the best income they can.

"But it doesn't seem right to charge for volunteers. In the public's eyes, it is a charitable organisation.

"And after 30 years' trading, just to get an email and not even a phone call – that was disturbing, and also the time factor having accepted the fixtures.

"After 30 years working together, I think the timing is despicable and could have put the whole speedway season in serious doubt.

"I was shell-shocked. They could at least have given me, say, a year's notice. I am still deeply concerned with the way this was handled."

The charity said in a statement that it was "disappointed" not to be providing cover this season, but pleased that an alternative had been found.

"With all the events we're asked to cover, we individually assess them to see if they're charitable, non-profit making or commercial," it said.

"In this instance, the event is commercial, but due to the fantastic, long-standing relationship we have with them, we offered a substantial discount.

"We realised before confirming the booking that we didn't have enough volunteer ambulance drivers in Wolverhampton to fulfil the needs of this event, and would have to employ staff.

"The organisers were unwilling to cover this additional cost and whilst we understand the speedway's decision not to go ahead with this, as a charity we are unable to continue to offer our services at a loss.

"The charge for our services would cover costs, such as ongoing first aid training for volunteers, the cost of uniforms, life saving equipment and petrol.

"Any surplus is used by St John Ambulance to further its charitable output, through community first aid training, working with schools and equipping as many people as possible with first aid information.

"While we appreciate that the organisers feel a phone call would have been better to communicate the issue, we endeavoured to bring clarity to the reasons for the situation by setting everything out in writing."