King's Lynn's Queen Elizabeth Hospital rebuild latest: Protestors call for more support from community

A community action group has called for more people to join its weekly protests.

Around 20 protestors have been meeting every Wednesday afternoon for more than a year outside the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) with homemade banners, and they say they will keep doing this until a new hospital is built.

Leaders of the community action group Cllr Rob Colwell and Cllr Jo Rust aim to get as many people as possible to come to their weekly protests.

With prime minister candidate MP Liz Truss's recent comment saying she's "very committed" to building a new hospital, Cllr Colwell says he hopes this is a promise she can keep.

"I hope she sticks to her word. If she is made Prime Minister I think that local people will want to hold her to account," said Cllr Colwell.

With 1,528 props currently holding up the 42-year-old hospital building, people are becoming more and more concerned.

One regular protestor Peter Smith has said how time is running out to get a new hospital.

"We come here every Wednesday and we've been doing it for over a year now, it's getting more and more desperate,

"We just hope its not too little, too late."

Young and old gather weekly, some take time from their lunch breaks to hold up signs for passers by to see.

Bharti Patel is also a regular protestor. She said: "We want to maintain our hospital and keep it here and it's crumbling, we want a replacement.

"That's the reason why I come here, because who knows when you're going to need it?"

Cllr Colwell added: "This is part of our community action group and this has been going on for months and months and months.

"We weren't expecting to do this for that long but there's been delays and delays and delays,

"As a community action group we were invited in (the hospital) to say thank you for the work we're doing and to see the struts with our own eyes and it really brings it home to see strut after strut over beds.

"It goes to show we're in dire need,"

Cllr Jo Rust said: "Our Save the QEH campaign group has worked tirelessly for the past 28 months to ensure the need for a fully funded, single phase, new build stays high upon the government’s radar.

"Unlike the MPs, the campaign doesn’t stop for a summer recess. We’re all incredibly disappointed that we’re no closer to finding out if we’re going to get the funding than we were at the start.

"The government seems to think it can ignore the dire need here and overlook the fact there are over 1500 props stopping the roof falling in the most recent closure of 3 operating theatres shows how quickly the situation can significantly worsen.

"All MPs and ministers associated with our QEH and the decision making need to up their game and stop the delays if they want any constituents to give them their vot at the next General Election."