PLANNING
A key focus of the Society is to keep watch on the weekly planning applications for the town of Maldon, especially its historic centre, and also its immediate surroundings including Langford and Heybridge.
As well as trying to ensure our many buildings of historic or public interest are protected, we seek to ensure that any new developments are appropriate to their visual context and the needs of the town.
St Peter’s Hospital - Maldon Society's view
The Maldon Society and its members would like to thank Maldon Mayor, Andrew Lay for chairing the recent public meeting held at Plume Community Academy.
This meeting enabled over 400 residents who attended to ask questions and to put forward their comments to a panel on the proposed changes for the services provided at St Peter’s Hospital. The panel consisted of Maldon’s MP - Sir John Whittingdale, representatives from NHS and Cllr. Richard Siddall MDC. However many more wanted to attend but due to capacity were unable to attend.
Members of the Maldon Society attended the meeting. We recognise that the proposed changes are detrimental to our rapidly growing town and that any plans should be carefully considered before going ahead.
We are particularly concerned about the relocation of three vital services:
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Intermediate care inpatient services
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Stroke rehabilitation inpatient services
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Freestanding midwife-led birthing unit
St Peter’s Hospital also provides other valuable local services for our residents including prenatal and postnatal clinics, the Cherry Trees Therapy Centre for mental health patients, podiatry clinics, X-rays, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, district nursing, ultrasound scans, blood tests and more.
The Society believes that the relocation of services to other hospitals will result in serious inconvenience and problems for patients travelling further for these services. The lack of public transport services, over-crowded parking at other hospitals and regular problems with major access roads like the A12 will all add to problems for patients travelling to other hospitals. These problems will be particularly acute for patients who have serious ills or who are travelling from parts of the Dengie.
We support the public consultation period, which will run from 25th January. There is a hard copy of the document available: please call 01268 594350 or email mseics.getinvolved@nhs.net
For more information or to register interest in providing evidence, email: PublicConsultationHearing@wearestand.co.uk
To find out more about the consultation, proposals and how to have your say visit: virtualviews.midandsouthessex.ics.nhs.uk/changes-to-services.