The Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust  have gone back on their promise to keep the front of Berwick's 1874 Infirmary. They are now proposing to keep only the tower.

John Starforth's Italianate building, paid for by the townspeople of Berwick, is a good example of the H-block hospital design favoured by Florence Nightingale. The retention of the main block and two wings that are under threat was part of a compromise that the people Berwick agreed to, as partial compensation for introducing a large, intrusive modern building into the conservation area. Indeed, their 2020 application is fulsome in its praise of what would be kept as a gateway to the new hospital. The compromise followed an outcry over the proposed demolition of the whole building.

We demand that the Trust keeps to their promise and retains the front. This will allow the building to continue to have a purpose - a stranded tower will have no practical potential and is therefore vulnerable to further calls for demolition. The tower also loses architectural and historical integrity by being stripped of all context. And it is not justifiable for the very small amount of land gained.

We do not believe that the secretive talks the Trust has held constitute due diligence in finding an alternative use. Besides, predicating retention on finding a tenant before renovation was never part of the original application.

This substantial erosion of Berwick's heritage cannot be allowed to happen.