I think I should extend some sympathy to Ms Katie Fisher as I suspect that her attempt to reassure Observer readers about the future of Watford Hospital may be met with some scepticism.

This is not Ms Fisher’s fault as she has only been in post for a short time. Unfortunately she is following in the footsteps of two controversial predecessors both of whom had been giving similar assurances since 2007.

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I wish Ms Fisher well with a job that apparently proved too much for either of these two previous chief executives.

The ‘recent comments’ that Ms Fisher referred to regarding the Watford Health Campus have come from disappointed people who had been believing the implicit suggestions coming from Watford Borough Council that the whole point of the Health Campus scheme was to make new improved health facilities possible.

She is no doubt aware of the recent history of debate and litigation in Watford regarding the loss of public amenities that were being sacrificed for the sake of these supposed health facilities.

With this history in mind it was therefore rather shocking to some people to find that the first material manifestation of the Health Campus should be an industrial development called Trade City.

Trade City had never, to my knowledge, been previously mentioned by WBC. Ms Fisher suggested that those who were disappointed by the building of Trade City instead of a hospital should take comfort from the Hospital Trusts ‘strategic outline case’.

Sadly that document has been compiled in pursuit of not yet secured funds and even if it all goes well the Health Campus, with no health facilities, will be finished years beforehand.

In meantime the hospital will have lost half its car park to Health Campus development and if the ‘The Hub’ (a sort of retail Trade City) goes ahead it will occupy a further area that is currently hospital land.

Considering how much the public’s concern for the hospital’s improvement has been politically exploited by the advocates of the Health Campus scheme it is not at all surprising that Ms Fisher has recognised the public’s unease. What is more surprising is that she should provide such unquestioning support for a commercial housing and industrial development scheme that will itself include no material improvements to the Trust’s hospital.

Derek Bainbridge, Fairfolds, Watford