PARISH councillors in Oxenhope have agreed to spend up to £3,800 to equip their village with two publicly accessible defibrillators.

Councillors voted in favour of the funding for the potentially life-saving devices, one of which will be situated at Oxenhope Railway Station and the other inside the disused phone booth in Leeming.

They opted to buy the defibrillators from DefibShop, which is based in Manchester. This business will also handle annual servicing arrangements.

Funding for the devices has included contributions of £700 from Oxenhope Straw Race, £700 from an anonymous parishioner, £995 from Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, £1,000 from the Freemasons and a further £40 from another parishioner.

These defibrillators are designed to be simple for any member of the public to use if they need to resuscitate someone in an emergency.

Explaining the scheme after the council's latest meeting, parish council chairman Cllr Ken Eastwood said: "The Department of Health requires the ambulance service reaches 75 per cent of category A – ie life-threatening – calls within eight minutes.

"Published statistics indicate that in Oxenhope only 43 per cent of life-threatening calls are responded to within the target response time.

"The parish council hopes to encourage other organisations to consider installing or contributing towards additional community defibrillators in Oxenhope.

"For maximum effectiveness units need to cover no more than a 200-metre radius. Oxenhope’s dispersed settlements would benefit from additional installations.

"In addition to the Community Public Access Defibrillators, the parish council has been pivotal in establishing a new First Responder scheme for the village.

"The council publicised the scheme, called for volunteers and arranged a briefing with the Yorkshire Ambulance Service.

"The scheme is progressing through the administration stages, and volunteers will be trained in the near future, in readiness for the scheme's launch."

People can e-mail ken.eastwood@oxenhopeparishcouncil.gov.uk for details about the defibrillators, or to learn more about volunteering as a First Responder in Oxenhope.