'Build our hospital' campaigners will tell the new PM

Labour party members in the town have been given permission to deliver their renewed plea for the hospital to the seat of power on Thursday, June 28, as the country's leadership changes hands.

And Gazette readers can add their weight to the campaign writing their support which will also be handed into Number 10.

Click here for a coupon which you can print out and send to the Gazette to show your support.

The drive to get the hospital built has been given fresh impetus by heated exchanges at an Arun Council meeting last week, when a West Sussex Primary Care Trust (PCT) official refused to confirm that 10m of funding originally set aside for the Littlehampton project was no longer ring-fenced.

Former town mayor Mark Butler, who was given a written assurance by another NHS executive last year that the money was protected, asked Sara Weech, the PCT's director of strategy, three times whether the funding was still safe.

After failing to obtain what he felt was a straight answer, Mr Butler declared: "I'll take that as a no."

Ms Weech replied: "I cannot commit to that ring-fenced resource here and now."

Although Ms Weech was giving a wide-ranging presentation on the controversial Fit for the Future reorganisation of the county's health service, with some pointers to the prospects for Worthing Hospital and St Richard's Hospital, Chichester, Littlehampton councillors were most keen to press for answers on the hospital scheme for their town, which was put on hold days before building work was due to start.

Postponing the project was blamed on the Fit for the Future exercise, with NHS officials saying it would be wrong to build a new hospital in Littlehampton when the rest of the health service across West Sussex was in the melting pot.

However, Mr Butler and Littlehampton Labour colleague councillor Mike Northeast argue that the community hospital development had been exhaustively discussed and carefully designed through years of planning, to meet the needs of the town and surrounding areas.

"It met all the criteria 18 months ago, when they knocked down our old hospital, and it still meets all the criteria for the role of community hospitals, set out by Ms Weech in her presentation," said Mr Butler.

"Ours should have been a flagship hospital for the rest of West Sussex," said Mr Northeast.

"If they had gone ahead and built it, as they should have done, it would have been the model for the rest of the county to follow."

They are delighted that their delegation will be in Downing Street on the historic day.

"It's phenomenal that we may well be the first group to go there as Gordon Brown takes power and that we can take the views of the people of Littlehampton to the door of power," added Mr Butler.

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