Haringey’s last hospital is under threat. Plans to redevelop the St Ann’s Hospital site have been rumbling on since 2006. Now, as the managers of the site, Barnet Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust (BEHMHT) are preparing their application to get Foundation Trust Status in 2014 the redevelopment plans have been developing rapidly. To get Foundation Trust status BEHMHT needs to ‘balance its books’. They claim the site is underutilised, has poor facilities and is costing them £7.5m a year to maintain. They say the only way they can afford to provide the healthcare facilities we need is to sell off two thirds of the site to property developers. We say we already pay for universal healthcare out of our taxes, we demand healthcare facilities that meet the needs of local people now and for the foreseeable future. We don’t see the site as a liability – it is an asset that needs protecting.

We the undersigned call for a halt to the plans to sell off NHS land at St Ann's Hospital to property developers, and instead call for improved mental and physical health services to be provided on the site to meet the needs of Haringey's residents now and in the foreseeable future, including expanded Mental Health facilities, a multiagency Child Development Centre and an Urgent Care Centre.

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