FURIOUS Gwent councillors branded the latest ambulance response times "not good enough", and have demanded service improvements.

Despite a Gwent-wide increase in the percentage of life-threatening calls responded to within eight-minutes, rural areas still lag far behind.

Figures for 2004 show the service responded to 60 per cent of life-threatening calls in Newport, 52 per cent of calls in Torfaen and 47 per cent of calls in Monmouthshire, within eight minutes.

But in England, ambulance crews achieved a rate of 75 per cent.

"We need to be serviced properly - we are not living in a second rate country," said Pam Birchall, Monmouthshire council's member for St Christopher's in Chepstow.

"This is a rural area which needs services to be as good as anywhere else, and we have been saying this for the last nine years.

"It is simply not good enough.

"Our service is being sacrificed for the good of Newport. We are supposed to have ambulances stationed in Chepstow and Monmouth, but they end up there."

Ambulance chiefs admit the service is still falling short of the Assembly target of 60 per cent rate by March, but say without more cash from the capital, they will never meet the standard of their English counterparts.

A spokeswoman for the service told the Argus improvements had been achieved by "greater efficiency and hard work" on behalf of ambulance staff.

But, she said: "The trust believes it needs an extra £9 million funding in order to reach the ultimate target of 75 per cent of life-threatening calls responded to within eight minutes.

"The service has received £3.5 million capital investment money from the Assembly for replacement vehicles, but has been told there is no additional funding available this year."

Councillor Verona Nelmes, Monmouthshire council's member for Govilon, blamed poor service planning for "disappointing" response times in her area.

"If rural areas are a problem, we need to be looking at where vehicles are based," she said.

In Blaenau Gwent ambulances arrived within eight minutes to 54 per cent of life-threatening calls while in Caerphilly county borough the figure is 53 per cent.

Across Wales more than 58 per cent of life-threatening calls to ambulances are now responded to within eight minutes.

This say service chiefs is despite the fact there has been a much higher demand of 999 calls - an extra 2,300 calls in the past eight months alone.