St. Helier Hospital Petition Gathers Momentum

3.52.17pm UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 13th Nov 2006

Cllr Margaret Ali (second right) and Tom Brake MP sign the petition in Wallington on Saturday.

At the Wallington Farmers' Market last Saturday, there were some extraordinary scenes as local residents queued at the Carshalton and Wallington Liberal Democrats' regular Razzmatazz stall to sign the 'Save Our St Helier Hospital' petition.

If local Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake and fellow Liberal Democrat councillors had any doubts about the support locally for their campaign to keep the hospital and its Accident and Emergency Unit open, those doubts were dispelled when 200 signatures were collected in just a couple of hours.

Commenting Tom Brake said, "Local people need this hospital and its Accident and Emergency Unit and we will fight tooth and nail to keep it open."

Petition signatures have also been flooding Tom Brake's office in the last few days. Friday saw over twenty come in the mail, and another 40 came in Monday's mailbag. Coincidentally, this weekend the online website petition (http://www.tombrake.co.uk/petitions/), also saw higher than usual traffic, and additional signatures to the petition joined the Razzmatazz ones gained at Farmers' Market.

The campaign has its own webpage at http://www.tombrake.co.uk/pages/savesthelier.html listing the action Tom has taken so far in this campaign.

There will also be a march on the 25th November to further demonstrate support for St Helier Hospital. Marchers are to assemble by 10:30am at Rosehill Recreation Ground, next to the Sutton Junior Tennis Centre in Rosehill. The march will follow a pre-defined route before a series of speeches on the future of the hospital will take place in the open space in Wrythe Lane opposite the hospital.

ENDS

Notes to the Editor

The St Helier petition currently has nearly a thousand signatures, will be presented to Secretary of State for Health, the Rt Hon Patricia Hewitt MP.