By Ray Battersby
After being absent from the UK for a month, I would like to respond to those who - in my absence - have commented in the local newspapers on the fact that I referred the cost of the hospital feasibility study to the District Auditor.
It was Alexander Pope who, in 1740, said, "To speak his thought is every free man's right - in peace, in war, in council and the fight." He would have, no doubt, said, "It is every taxpayer's duty to refer to the District Auditor that which he considers is inappropriate expenditure."
To describe such action as "sabotage", as Francis Maude did, amounts to criticism from a low level intellectual base. He equally got his facts wrong when he claimed that it all started with the Bignall Report. Not so. It goes back to 1990 when the Tory Government refused to build a new hospital at Pease Pottage - even though they were offered the site.
As to the point that the study only cost 20p per person - this is a red herring and is from the mindset of those who completely sabotaged the political process by the expenses scandal - in which Francis Maude was at the forefront.
In my view, the £37,500, with more to come, is a misuse of taxpayers' money - given the three previous studies and over £35 million public funds spent on upgrading Horsham and Crawley hospitals. Any feasibility study for a private hospital should be privately financed and, for myself, any new hospital should be totally NHS funded and run.
Certainly, the three Tory Councils should have nothing to do with the running of it. Voters should remember it was the last Tory Government who brought the NHS to its knees.
