Letter to the Editor: I am amazed to read, that the “clock starts on hospital sale”.

I would like to know whom in the Lydney Town Council listed Lydney Hospital a “Community Asset in 2018”. 

Memories must have faded, as I believe this facility was original founded as The Lydney and District Hospital in 1882 by Mrs. M.E. Bathurst of Lydney Park, at a converted cottage in Aylburton.

The present hospital site was built between 1907-09. 

Between 1914 and 1919 the hospital was used by the Red Cross for nursing war wounded, and from 1925 the hospital operated as contributory medical care scheme.

So, this facility has been a “community asset” for over a century. 

Melville Watts and the Friends of Lydney Hospital carried out amazing fund-raising activities to bring the Lydney community together and support in its adoration to something special and unique, within the Lydney area.

Having witnessed the way that building infrastructures globally have been abandoned throughout history; like those gone before, they will fall in ruin and probably be vandalised. 

Let’s hope that the Forest Hospitals don’t go the same way as the dismantling of the railways back in the 60s.

Why does it go on to state that the X-Ray machine is to be dismantled and moved to the new facility, but in the body of the newspaper, under Hospital is to have a new x-ray machine. Talk about wasting tax-payers money.

Why is it deemed better to discontinue the use of our current Lydney and Dilke hospitals by replacing them with one medical facility in Cinderford,out of reach to most Foresters, due to the lack of public transportation or access to motorized transport?

Roderick Dawson-Marsh, Lydney