Save our hospital!

The petition was presented to MP Peter Bottomley by members of the Sea Estate Residents' Association, Rustington, who also collected signatures of people living in Angmering, East Preston, Littlehampton and Ferring.

Mr Bottomley received the petition just days after Adur, Arun and Worthing Primary Care Trust (PCT) approved proposals to reorganise community hospital services in the Littlehampton and Rustington area, following a two-month public consultation.

The trust plans to sell off the Zachary Merton site for housing, to help subsidise the cost of a new community hospital to serve the whole area, on the site of the existing Littlehampton Hospital. There will also be substantial investment in community nursing, therapy and caring services to enable more people to stay in their own homes.

But the proposals have been criticised by the residents' association, which collected the signatures in just three weeks.

The petition reads: "We the undersigned remain unconvinced that the project planned by the Adur, Arun and Worthing Primary Care Trust will improve health care in our area.

"Our genuine concern is that these plans will see the disposal of the prime asset supporting our health care, the Zachary Merton Hospital. If it is sold and the scheme fails in any way, there is no way back.

"We have a rapidly growing population in this area, yet fewer beds will be available, parking will be inadequate for the number of services and staff predicted, and we have little faith that the numbers of staff required for an efficient community care system can be found or maintained, and that more bed blocking will be the result.

"Zachary Merton is a much larger, more central site than Littlehampton Hospital and offers greater scope for future expansion.

"So we say keep Zachary Merton Hospital and its land for both Littlehampton and Rustington residents, both for today and the area's future requirements, as it has room for expansion, where Littlehampton does not."

The choice of Littlehampton as the site of the new community hospital overturned a previous proposal that it should be built on land at Zachary Merton.

The Rustington-based scheme was dropped last year because of a tripling in building costs and a similar rise in running costs.

PCT officials said during the consultation exercise that although the 40-44 beds proposed for the new hospital would be fewer than the 60 which would have been provided by the redeveloped Zachary Merton Hospital, the major investment in additional community care staff meant substantially more people would be treated.