FOLLOWING the recent presentation evening about the new hospital for Okehampton, held at the town's rugby club, hospital appeal committee members Dr Paul Nielson and Cllr Christine Marsh write:

THE Mid Devon Primary Care Trust and the New Okehampton Hospital Appeal Committee would like to ensure that accurate facts are provided to the public with regard to the acquisition of the New Okehampton Hospital site and that the probity of public bodies is ensured.

The Exeter and District Health Care Community Trust entered into negotiations for the purchase of the New Okehampton Hospital site over two years ago. An area of 3.5 acres was the area calculated as being required by the Estates Department, following previous purchases of land for equivalent size hospitals elsewhere.

Planned future expansion has been incorporated in the calculation. The planning permission for the hospital site was granted in March 2001. The option of the land was purchased on 15.5.00. The final completion date was on 19.3.01, the initial negotiations having started in October 1999.

The NHS is not allowed by strict regulation to enter into speculative land purchases and is not in a position to purchase more land than is required for capital projects.

Towards the end of the negotiation period for the 3.5 acres, it was made known to the project team that a further party was entering into negotiations with the land owner for other parts of the site. Part of this site was adjacent land to that being purchased by the Exeter and District Community Health Care Trust.

On April 1 2001 the Mid Devon Primary Care Trust became owners of the site as the responsibilities and ownership of the relevant NHS properties were transferred from the Exeter and District Community Health Care Trust to the Mid Devon Primary Care Trust.

The project team at a late stage identified an advantage to the hospital site by changing the road access and route with the agreement of the other party. The advantage to the hospital being further land availability within the acquired site. The cost of this new road access and routing was £100,000.

The District Valuer independently valued the gain to the NHS to be as half the total cost. The NHS has to, under its guidelines of negotiation, accept the District Valuer's valuation. The Project Team felt that this was an acceptable planning gain with half the cost of the road access being paid by the other party. The project team considers that the planning gain achieved was the best that could be possibly negotiated.

It was unfortunate that the invited guests were side-tracked into the details of the proposed development for housing. The appeal committee was not aware that the development was to be discussed at the meeting. This was unfortunate as the real issues were to celebrate a successful design and the ongoing success of the appeal.

The appeal committee would also like to point out that the whole cost of the evening was met by a member of the committee and the monies did not come out of funds raised so far by the appeal or from any other source.

The appeal committee would also like to point out that they could not invite all the persons in our locality to this particular function purely because of numbers. We intend to hold other meetings to which as many other people as we can involve will be invited.

The mayor has made the appeal her chosen charity of the year.

We hope this clears up any confusion over the issues raised by the invited audience on the evening.

Paul Nielson

GP, Project Team member

Executive of Mid Devon PCT

Chair of the New Okehampton Hospital Appeal

Christine Marsh

Mayor, committee member of New Okehampton Hospital Appeal