Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
MP ‘kept informed’ on hospital building plan, says Tory leader
Leader insists new Labour MP has been contacted about development bid ‘People want a great hospital. They are not asking how it should be funded’
New MP Rosie Duffield is not being kept in the dark over a property developer’s proposal to rebuild the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, claims the city council leader.
Cllr Simon Cook told a council meeting at the Guildhall that Canterbury’s Labour MP has been properly informed about Quinn Estates’ proposal to build a £70 million five-storey hospital shell as part of a 2,000-home scheme in the south of the city.
The Conservative was responding to a question from Labour’s Northgate councillor Jean Butcher at last Thursday’s meeting of the full council.
She accused the Conservative Party nationally of failing to properly fund the NHS and complained that Ms Duffield had been “kept in the dark” over the Quinn plan.
But Cllr Cook responded: “This was not done behind closed doors and I have emailed all three local MPS about it.
“I have received responses from Sir Roger Gale and Helen Whately, but am still waiting for a reply from Rosie Duffield.
“I appreciate she is very busy, but I regret that, as I would like to think this is something we would work together on for the benefit of the whole district.”
Ms Duffield unseated Conservative Sir Julian Brazier at the June 8 general election with a campaign pledge to fight for the Kent and Canterbury Hospital.
When the Quinn plan was first mooted at the start of this month, she argued it represented the switching of public assets into private hands.
Quinn Estates director Mark Quinn has suggested that work on the new hospital could start in 2019 on council-owned farmland next to the Kent and Canterbury. The health trust would then be free to do what it liked with the existing site.
Cllr Cook said: “To be honest, people want a great hospital. They are not asking how it should be funded.
“Guy’s Hospital in London, for example, was founded by a man who sold knock-off copies of the Bible.
“This is one option and we are not going to Mr Quinn and saying he can do what he likes. It would be remiss of us if we did not take a look at this possibility.”