I was very interested to read Peter Taylor’s rather self-congratulatory article (New A&E hospital would result in slow death for Watford General) in last week’s Watford Observer.

READ MORE: New A&E hospital would result in slow death for Watford General Hospital

In my opinion, Mr Taylor’s views on why he wants to keep the Vicarage Road site as the location for West Herts A&E hospital are extremely insular. Someone in the trust should remind him that Watford General Hospital became the single A&E hospital in West Herts from 2007. He should also bear in mind that many residents in Watford will also have friends and family in other parts of West Herts and any preferences for the location of the A&E hospital should remain outside tribal politics.

Mr Taylor went on to say that a new A&E hospital would result in the slow death of Watford General Hospital. That has unfortunately been going on for years and is a major reason why the Mayor should be backing the call for a brand new A&E hospital rather than celebrating plans for an extremely risky, lengthy and difficult renovation of a hospital well past its life expectancy.

Regarding Mr Taylor’s point about West Herts Hospitals Trust not being able to afford a new A&E hospital, the trust has still not produced any figures to date to demonstrate that it has thoroughly evaluated this option. Just remember that this is the trust that last year submitted its strategic outline case to NHS Improvement for an investment in Watford General Hospital in the region of £600 to £800 million and had it rejected for reasons of affordability. No one is arguing that Watford General Hospital hasn’t served the community well but with a healthy £350 million (plus possible hospital estate disposals) to invest with, this is the right time for the local NHS decision-makers to be looking to the future and in the process identify a more suitable and accessible location for West Herts A&E Hospital. The Mayor also didn’t mention new housing developments being planned for West Herts, that will increase its population by at least 150,000. Can the Vicarage Road hospital really be developed sufficiently to cope with such a sizeable increase?

Regarding Mr Taylor’s comment about “there was never an appropriate site identified for it”, Having engaged Amec Foster Wheeler to assess 17 sites in the first search for a new site, the trust and Herts Valleys CCG recently initiated a second search to identify land for a new hospital - although the trust have since ruled out building a new A&E hospital, the results of the second search have yet to be made known to the public! Why?

Mr Taylor mentions that the trust have been granted planning permission for a new multi-storey car park. This certainly is good news but is also essential as the trust will be losing the staff car parks, the lower car parks are destined to be developed into more flats/school and some of the upper car parks are possibly being used for new hospital buildings.

Building the new multi-storey car park before redeveloping the hospital raises the question - how can the new car park be connected to the hospital buildings if they will also be subject to redevelopment after the car park is completed?

A new “state of the art” A&E hospital would be built away from public access and therefore not involve patients and hospital staff being in any contact with any of the hazards that come with building works. It would also be specified to meet current and future NHS standards/environmental regulations and have a working life of at least the next 50 years.

Hopefully current and future generations will benefit from campaigners' continued efforts to have the most logical and practical option put back on the table for a full and fair evaluation.

Andy Love

By email