Closure plan for hospital with asbestos and collapsing roof
Closure plan for hospital with asbestos and collapsing roof
Plus: What happened next to hotel with £1m debts and mass graves battle
Hello and welcome to edition 61 of The Lancashire Lead. Read on for news of the hospital too unsafe to continue operating, the latest in the fight against plans to close two West Lancs swimming pools, and what happened next when a much loved hotel closed its doors owing £1m to lenders.
First, to East Lancs where the condition of Accrington Victoria Hospital has become so poor that bosses say they have been forced to close it for safety reasons. With problems including collapsed roofs, asbestos and broken boilers, East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust (ELHT) describe the building as being in critical condition.
Chief Executive Martin Hodgson said the four main services - Minor Injuries Unit (MIU), X-Ray, Outpatients and GP services delivered by PWE Healthcare - will remain “local”, with Accrington PALS in the town centre or Acorns in Blackburn Road listed as alternative locations. Mr Hodgson said:
“I know how strongly people in Accrington feel about the hospital and I want to respect and recognise its incredible history, right at the heart of the town since 1894 and certainly before the NHS began.
“I am so sorry we have to move out, but the simple truth is that the building is beyond repair or reconfiguration as a health care facility and we have been unable to keep on top of the immense, routine maintenance required for quite some time.
“Large parts of it are closed, the roof has collapsed in a number of places, it’s full of asbestos and the heating system originally fired by three boilers is down to one, which if it fails simply cannot be repaired. It is dangerous to remain there as we head into winter and, sadly, the building no longer provides the kind of environment we need for patients or our teams.”
Hyndburn Council has expressed its concern and disappointment over the move, while promising to hold hospital bosses to account over their promises. Rather ominously, plans for the future of the building include public involvement over what comes next and discussions of protecting its “legacy” but no guarantee of reviving the current use.
The move has also sparked a row between current Hyndburn MP Sarah Smith and her predecessor Sara Britcliffe. As Smith shared news of the closure and her own disappointment at the circumstances, she also accused Britcliffe of inaction over the situation. She said:
I am also shocked and angry to learn that the previous Conservative MP knew how bad this situation was for almost two years but chose to do nothing. It is well known that the NHS is facing a national crisis.
Years of underinvestment by the previous Conservative Government have caused untold damage and here is further evidence of this in our community. The building has been crumbling and residents now stand to lose this key asset. It is nothing less than a complete dereliction of her duty to the residents of Hyndburn.
That sparked an angry response from Britcliffe, who defended her record and accused Smith of issuing press releases rather than fighting for urgent funding. She said: “
The decision to close Accrington Victoria is due to the building being in a critical condition. This decision was not taken under my watch. This decision was not made whilst I was the Member of Parliament. I was never told that the hospital would close but was always in pro-active discussions about the future of the building both with the ELHT and the Government and I pressed for the potential of a dementia care unit.
Of course there have always been concerns about Accrington Victoria and the services there. The building is a building over 100 years old.
Sarah Smith must've known about this crucial decision prior to today's announcement whereas I did not as I am no longer the Member of Parliament. I am interested as to why we are only just being informed now and what lobbying has been done by Sarah when she found out.
Smith has made promises to battle to protect services and appeared on BBC Politics North West where she discussed the matter and attacked the “catastrophic inheritance” left by the Tories. She is also hosting a public meeting for residents which will take place at 5.30pm on Friday, October 18 at Accrington Town Hall - that will involve a discussion of the state of the building and take view of the future of the site with hospital bosses in attendance.
In Sunday’s edition, I discussed the anger of residents in another part of Lancashire at proposals to close vital services of their own. In Ormskirk and Skelmersdale, council leaders are to consult on plans to close the towns’ swimming pools in a bid to save money amid a funding crisis.
West Lancashire Borough Council wants to build replacement pools and had previously promised to keep the existing ones open until they new ones were ready, but now says that rising costs have made this unviable. A petition launched against the plan has been signed almost 4,000 times and a peaceful protest is planned to take place outside the council meeting where the matter is being discussed tonight.
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In a previous job, I spent a fair bit of time looking into the closure of Park Hall Hotel in Charnock Richard, Chorley. The hotel is located next to the old Camelot Theme Park and in 2022, closed its doors at a few hours’ notice with plans in place to use it instead as accommodation for people awaiting asylum application decisions.
Staff found out they’d lost their jobs overnight, guests were hurried out of the doors after breakfast and the gates locked to prevent access. Meanwhile, those who had events such as wedding booked found they could no longer go ahead and efforts to reclaim their money - in many cases several thousand pounds - has little to no success.
It was eventually sold again to the Brilliant Hotels group which has since reopened it and refurbished some areas. In the background, liquidators from Smith and Barnes have been working on the original company - Park Hall hotel Ltd - which collapsed with £1m of debt
Among those owed money were HMRC which was left £216,000 out of pocket and a string of small businesses which were due thousands. More than two years after their appointment, the liquidators finished their work this month with a grand total of zero paid out to those who were owed money.
A family’s struggle to erect a headstone to a one-day-old baby who was laid to rest in an unmarked burial has revealed there are hundreds of such ‘common graves’ in Darwen’s cemeteries, reports Bill Jacobs of the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Carol Tyrie, 51, from Brocklehead Farm in Eccleshill started a quest for the final home of Aileen Wiggans on behalf of her mother Angela in November. She located the burial in an unmarked grave in Darwen Western Cemetery.
But then faced a six-month battle with Blackburn with Darwen Council to be allowed to put up a headstone marking the final resting place of her sister, who died in 1967.
It was only after the intervention of Lancashire Coroner Dr James Adeley and discussions between West Pennine ward councillor Julie Slater and the authority’s legal officials that Mrs Tyrie was eventually allowed to put up the headstone to Aileen and 14 other individuals in the common grave.
They included an eight-year-old boy Enoch Crossley, who died in December 1862, two stillbirths, four other infants, and four adults who died aged between 60 and 83 and were buried between 1916 and 1967.
Mrs Tyrie originally planned to put a headstone up to just her sister but was told by the council’s bereavement services she could not. Then she sought to move her and was knocked back and she then offered to put all 15 individuals but was again rejected.
With the headstone finally put in place in March, she is now campaigning to ensure other families know they can find their loved ones in unmarked ‘common graves’ and commemorate them without the problems she faced over Aileen.
John East, a trustee of The Friends of Darwen Cemetery, which helped Mrs Tyrie find her sister’s grave, has confirmed there are hundreds more such anonymous burials in the town’s graveyards, often containing several sets of remains. Mrs Tyrie said:
“My mum Angela Wiggans, now 80, had a daughter Aileen in 1967. Aileen was born with spina bifida. She died aged one day on October 26, 1967. She was taken away and buried and that was that. It was what they did on those days. We have always known about her in the family.
“When my dad Richard died five years ago we asked my mother what she wanted to do about my sister. She said she wanted to find Aileen’s grave before her 80th birthday and put up a headstone.”
Three family members set about trying to fulfil that wish and were shocked to find out another 14 people were in the same grave and that they were among hundreds of such examples in Darwen’s cemeteries. The family say Blackburn with Darwen Council’s bereavement service initially refused a request to put a headstone on a shared grave, to allow them to put up a headstone with all the names on, or to relocate the baby’s body to another plot.
However, after the intervention of a local councillor and the Coroner’s Office, it was eventually agreed a shared gravestone could be erected. Mrs Tyrie said:
“We felt the others in the grave should be remembered as well so with the help of the Friends of Darwen Cemetery we found their names.
“So we engraved the names of the other 14 people on the headstone and it was put up two months later in March. Aileen and their resting place is now properly marked and they are remembered.
“The whole process took a very distressing six months. We understand there are other similar unmarked graves nearby where people – children and babies – have also been laid to rest.
“You can see other families have been there and left small stones and flowers but do not know there the graves are. What we want to do is to get out there what those other families can do to find their loved ones as they may not know they can do it.
“There has been a lot of publicity about this following the finding of the mass unmarked grave in Oldham. It’s not just babies in Aileen’s grave. When I saw the name of Enoch, aged eight, my heart broke.
“There could be families out there who want to know where their relatives are buried and properly mark their graves. They all deserve to be remembered. I feel after what we went through I have to help them do that now Aileen and the others in that grave are properly marked and remembered.
“This story isn’t necessary about the death of my sister, Aileen, but about giving other families peace and hope of finding children or relatives that may have been buried in common graves and are struggling to find their final resting place.
“Angela’s at peace now knowing where her first born child is at rest and she now has a grave and headstone to visit. Aileen and the others in her plot are now properly marked and they are remembered.
“And should any other families wish to do the same, they now know its possible.”
Martin Eden, the council’s strategic environment director, said the case was a particularly sensitive one and the authority had tried its utmost to help the family but also had a “a duty of care for the others buried in the grave along with their families”. He continued:
“With this in mind, and after further advice was sought, we came to the decision the family of Aileen could place a memorial as long as all the those buried in the grave were also named on the headstone.
“In turn we provided the family with all the details they required, as well as the rules and regulations. Families can visit any Blackburn with Darwen Library to search for their loved one’s burial plot free of charge, which includes those in common graves.
“There they can view records for Blackburn Cemetery (Whalley New Road), Darwen Cemetery, Pleasington Cemetery and Pleasington Crematorium.”
🏗️ Plans delayed for more than a decade which could see 1,400 homes, a school and a pub built on the edge of Blackpool have been brought forward (Blackpool Gazette).
Police are investigating after a prisoner was attacked with a combination of boiling water and sugar at HMP Garth in Leyland (Blog Preston).
💊 A Clitheroe woman had a stroke at just 17-years-old due to complications with her contraceptive pill (Mirror Online).
🍔 A 'hole in the wall' takeaway has reopened in Morecambe for the first time in 11 years (Beyond Radio).
🚯 A rubbish mountain has appeared outside the former fracking site in Fylde after the spot became a magnet for fly-tipping (LancsLive).
😫 A union has threatened legal action after claims that “exhausted and stressed” cleaning staff, who work at East Lancashire sites, have been underpaid (Lancashire Telegraph).
Thank you for reading the 61st edition of The Lancashire Lead. If you’ve enjoyed reading and haven’t already, please consider taking out a paid subscription to support my work - and share it so others can find it too. I’ll be back with the next edition on Sunday.
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