Various people have asked lately what is happening with the leisure centre. We’re a couple of weeks off a year since the leisure centre closed for rebuilding works. Residents have been using the temporary facilities in the former Goole College for gym sessions, and taking a return bus journey to Crowle if they want to swim, or making alternative arrangements for themselves.
The bicentenary year of Goole as a port and company town is now about a year and two weeks away, so if the leisure centre rebuild, which includes a Town Deal Fund element (though that is not the primary source of funding), is going to be ready for the 200th birthday celebrations, they really need to get a wiggle on.
The East Riding PR operation certainly talks a good game in terms of how Goole has been transformed by the Junction 36 developments, and as far is it goes, Junction 36 has brought new opportunities for people in this part of the world. Many residents are not experiencing the feelgood vibes though as the established part of town continues to appear neglected. The works in Dunhill Rd are definitely a positive, but they are a drop in the ocean in the context of how uncared for much of the older parts of town look.
People wonder too about value for money. Goole residents pay council tax to East Riding Council. We also have to pay a precept for Goole Town Council. This seems to be to fund Goole Town Council renting from East Riding Council what the Borough of Goole then the Borough of Boothferry used to own – parks, market hall etc. Goole Town Council pay staff to run and maintain them - when other towns in the East Riding get all this out of their East Riding council tax. How is that a good deal for Goole residents? Given that Goole is an economically deprived area, it seems like fleecing the less well off East Riding citizens to further embellish the more prosperous parts, by making Goole residents pay twice for what Beverley and Bridlington get out of their East Riding Council Tax.
Bear that in mind as we approach the time when both councils sit down, and very likely vote to legally force residents to pay even more in council tax and precept – in effect paying two councils to rip residents off, and attack, insult and malign anybody who questions what is going on. We’re about to have another layer of local government to pay for – an elected mayor that few residents seem to want.
It isn’t just residents who are feeling badly treated. There is a lot of encouragement for people to set up their own businesses. Town Deal funded Opportunity Goole featured a new cafe in Pardise Place at one of its events in the autumn. It’s tough and hard work setting up a business, and anyone who gives it a try deserves our respect, and if they are providing a good service, our support. But then the Town Council seems to want to expand its own cafe as a continental outdoor operation in Paradise Place, directly competing with a new private business, and seemingly using the precept to fund the competing (undermining). Add in the plans for the market hall, and bringing in big chains like KFC and Starbucks to supplement Costa, Subway and McDonalds and it starts to look like a council led strategy to undermine small individual businesses which have the potential to reinvigorate the town, at the same time as the public are lamenting the decline of the town centre.
Then there is the furore over the potential closure of Goole hospital. When the possibility was first posted on All About Goole, by one of the page’s administrators, some councillors dismissed it as negative and fake news. One of the councillors lectured the Facebook page administrator, using the comments facility, about their responsibilties. Then there were comments from residents that the hospital staff had been told by the Trust that options were being reviewed, which put rather a different complexion on things. Councillors changed tack.
A fundamental point about all this though is that it has been clear for anyone who cared to look that there has been a steady process of running Goole hospital down going on for years.
There was a public consultation which ended in January 2024 which explained that people were going to be sent to Grimsby for treatment, because of problems the Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Goole hospital is experiencing (leaflets about the consultations were put through people’s letterboxes). How many Goole people responded to the consultation a year ago (see : https://betterhospitalshumber.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Humber_Consultation-doc_V21.pdf?_gl=1*byl8pu*_ga*NTk0MTQxMjU1LjE3MzM5MTU1MTU.*_ga_KE7GDD5M98*MTczMzkxNTUxNC4xLjAuMTczMzkxNTUxNC4wLjAuMA
It’s great that Goole people are uniting to save the hospital. It is rather late in the day though. The time to start campaigning to retain and develop the hospital was when A&E was considerably downgraded some years ago – that was a very ominous sign.
Saving Goole hospital will involve setting out a carefully thought through plan of how Goole hospital can play a key role in healthcare in the second quarter of the 21st century and beyond. Local care, taking pressure off bigger hospitals, specialising in particular types of care (recruitment and retention of medical staff seems to be an issue, and opportunities to participate in authoritative research seems to be part of that retention problem).
Years ago, down in the South Wales valleys, coal miners worked long hours underground. Over time, their lungs filled with coal dust, they became unable to work, and could not afford to pay for medical treatment. Many died. That left families without a bread winner. The owners of the pits meanwhile had lavish lifestyles, multiple homes, art collections etc. The Tredegar Medical Aid Society was set up with miners contributing a few pennies each regularly so that everyone could receive medical treatment. It brought strength to the poor and powerless through pooling resources. That was the model for National Health Service – care for everyone free at the point of delivery by pooling resources.
American health insurers and for profit healthcare providers have long been looking greedily at the UK, and calculating how much profit they could make if the NHS was destroyed, and US for profit healthcare providers provided health services with UK citizens forced to pay fees to US insurers to cover medical fees. Think of your car and house insurance. Do you want to go through that type of haggling, with an insurance company having the final say, if you need a major operation, or cancer treatment?
Whatever the problems the NHS has at the moment, they would pale into insignificance for everybody but the wealthiest if the NHS were replaced by a US style insurance system with for profit healthcare providers. The US Government may well make it a condition of any trade agreement that the UK healthcare provision is handed over to US companies. The campaign to destroy the NHS, not just Goole hospital, has been going on for years.