Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust announced last week that births at the unit at North Devon District Hospital in Barnstable would be temporarily suspended from this week ‘due to unsafe levels of medical staffing'.

But North Devon Council is concerned the decision leaves pregnant women in the area facing a two-hour drive to alternative hospitals elsewhere in the South West of England.

The nearest alternative units are around 50 miles away, in Taunton in Somerset, or Plymouth in the South of Devon.

The council's health and adult care committee will meet on August 17 to discuss the closure and seek assurances that the unit will swiftly reopen.

‘The staffing issues behind this closure have clearly been developing for some time, yet it was announced with little notice,' said the committee's chair Cllr Jess Bailey.

‘We will seek assurance from the hospital trust that a robust plan is in place to ensure it is reopened as soon possible.

‘The unit will have been closed for six days by the time the committee meets, so some of the impacts on families, the safety of new mums and the effectiveness of the trust's mitigation plans should be understood by then.'

North Devon leader Cllr Julian Brazil said that the closure ‘is extremely concerning'.

‘It is not a decision which would be countenanced in other parts of the country and we should not accept second-rate NHS provision here,' he added.

In announcing the unit's temporary closure the NHS trust's chief nursing officer Carolyn Mills said: ‘We carefully considered the risks involved. While we recognise the additional travel this will mean for some families, we believe that concentrating services where safe medical staffing can be guaranteed is the safest option for everyone who relies on our maternity services.'

The issue for pregnant women in the area has gathered national attention this week, with Jemima Knight, a mother to be in the area, telling BBC Woman's Hour this week that she will relocate to Bristol as ‘it is the only way we can see we can have a safe birth'.

She said other pregnant women she knows are also looking at relocate or to consider C sections or inductions so that they know when they will give birth and can plan their journey.