Last week I brought together Natalie Forrest, the Head of the NHS’s New Hospitals Programme, and the Hospitals Minister, Nick Markham, with Basingstoke residents, so they could set out the facts and bust the myths about our new NHS Hospital.
Both the NHS Officer and the Minister were crystal clear with residents: Basingstoke is getting a new Hospital, the Hospital is funded, the Treasury has confirmed the funding is in place (between £700-900million), the money will now be given to the Trust in the usual way as their detailed plans are finalised, and £9 million has already been released by the Government so that our Hospital Trust can fund that planning work.
To demonstrate the sheer scale of work now underway in Basingstoke, the Minister also confirmed the NHS’s preferred site at Junction 7 of the M3 will be purchased in the coming months, subject to the final Public Consultation recommendations due to be published shortly.
There has been a lot of coverage in this newspaper of those who think funding a new Hospital for Basingstoke won’t be a Government priority by 2032. I have always been a strong and vocal supporter of our new Hospital because I know those naysayers are factually wrong. What they have done has created unnecessary anxiety and uncertainty for patients and for staff which is unacceptable. One of their spokesmen Cllr Michael Howard-Sorrel attended the public meeting with the NHS New Hospitals Head and Minister: all his questions were clearly answered and Cllr Howard-Sorrel graciously agreed that they were.
It’s undoubtedly the case that a new Hospital for Basingstoke is well underway. When asked, the Minister was clear, the most important thing we can now all do is to come together as a community and support the project. The Minister publicly admitted that it was unusual to hear that councillors may be unsupportive because in his experience every community would like a new local Hospital. I hope that the facts presented to residents by the NHS and Government will put an end to what has been an ugly, negative campaign that could have undermined the biggest ever investment in our community.
To get our Hospital built we must all pull together. That is why, on 25th January I convened a meeting of our Hospital Chief Executive, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council Leader Cllr Paul Harvey and the Hospital’s specialist planning consultants, the Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader of the Borough Council also joined us. At the time, all Parties agreed to work together to get our new Hospital built.
A great deal of work has already been done by Hampshire County Council including the motorway impact, planning for roads access and other infrastructure. Residents will want Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council to do the same. Planning consent, already granted for a new Hospital in the same area a few years ago, has lapsed. It needs to be renewed and residents need our Borough Council to get fully behind Basingstoke’s new hospital so we are ready to speed up delivery if the opportunity arises. Perhaps the extent of their support for our new hospital is the key question every resident should ask their Council Candidates ahead of the Local Elections on May 2nd.
