Reply to hospital comments

10:13am Monday 18th August 2008

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IT could only happen in Malvern, I am sure! I refer to comments in the Malvern Gazette on August 8 and the Worcester News on August 12 concerning our new hospital.

Malvern people started working towards a new hospital about 36 years ago, and 26 years ago the then-health authority had the foresight to purchase the excellent Seaford Court site in readiness.

A design and review board was set up last year and a lot of hard work and professional skills went into working on the successful bid for the funding. The public have had ample opportunity to study the plans, to make suggestions, and voice any concerns they might have.

These have been taken into account and alterations made - especially to enlarging the car parking area.

Now we have the Civic Society complaining that the design is too ‘ordinary looking' (what should the hospital look like I wonder - retro Victorian maybe?) and the chairman of the society complains that it looks too Mediterranean for Malvern and that it looks like a bungalow anyway!

They also suggest that the cars should be hidden from view in an underground car park - I wonder how much that would cost, I suppose we could have underground parking instead of beds and medical equipment! We cannot pretend that cars do not exist for goodness sake, even Malvern has had cars for many years now, in fact, ever since my grandfather’s hansom cab business closed down!

On top of all this we have your correspondent, Mr Spencer, who seems to be confusing the building of our hospital with the Birmingham European Assembly wanting more houses to be built in Worcestershire! He suggests we should not ‘rush blindly into building the hospital at Seaford Court’, (I would hardly call 26 years rushing blindly!) - he considers it be the wrong site and suggests that it would be better to build it at Newland where, he says, it would look onto a park and ride station, a business park and hundreds of houses! Thanks for that, Mrs Spencer - I'm sure our sick people would appreciate your caring thoughts!

J E GREEN, Malvern Link.