Martin Shaw seatonmatters.org /

I’ve gone back to Mary Wood’s splendid booklet on the history of Seaton Hospital (1991). While the original hospital opened in 1988 was paid for £1 to £1 by the League of Friends’ fundraising and the NHS, the ‘whole cost’ of the wing which the ICB now wants to declare redundant – potentially to demolish – was met by the League. The NHS only had to pay the running costs when it opened in 1990.

This makes it all the more outrageous that Seaton Hospital was placed in the ownership of NHS Property Services in 2016, and they could now bulldoze it. Morally the hospital, especially this wing, belongs to the community in Seaton, Colyton, Colyford, Beer, Axmouth and surrounding villages who raised the money to build it in the first place. The ICB, having shamefully failed to make proper use of it, should now hand it back free of charge.

Thanks to Ted Gosling, curator of Seaton Museum and the town’s only Freeman, who gave me this booklet back in 2017.