Today Dulwich councillors were sent confirmation that new health facilities will be constructed on the Dulwich Hospital Site. The new health centre will be a new build and initially house the existing facilities provided at the Dulwich Hospital with the capacity to deliver more.

After 22 years I’m chuffed that a coalition government involving Lib Dems finally have decided what to do with this site and the re-provision of more health services. Hooray. Just the boring details of making it happen!

When Cllr Rosie Shimell, Jonathan Mitchell and I were elected in 2010 we made it one of our priorities to get things moving on the Dulwich Hospital. We ran a survey of over 25,000 local residents, street stalls, knocking on local residents door to find out what people think and wanted. This built on the sterling work Jonathan had done in helping to stop the things just being closed and sold.

15-01-16 Brand new health centre to be built in Dulwich FINAL

The full details will be released 22 January to the CCG Governing Body. The announcement I’ve received makes it clear NHS Property are now looking to sell the surplus land i will do everything in my power to ensure all the spare land is used for educational purposes.

What is troubling is that any money from the sale of land will be used nationally and not ring fenced to Dulwich. The Dulwich Hospital was paid for by public subscription by former Dulwich residents. It speaks volumes that such monies donated to health causes and charities could be ultimately used outside the area the donors could reasonably ever have expected.