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Mental hospital spends £1m in failed planning bid
Peter Dominiczak and Neil Millard13 Mar 2009
A London NHS trust was today heavily criticised for spending £1 million on a failed application to redevelop a notorious mental hospital.
South West London and St George's Mental Health Trust had wanted to build a new mental health complex, 1,200 flats, shops, restaurants and a school on the site of Springfield Hospital in Tooting.
However, Wandsworth council last night rejected the plans, which had faced massive opposition from local residents. Campaigners today slammed the Trust for wasting £1 million of public funds money and accusing it of “playing at being a housing developer” rather than looking after patients.
Four patients escaped from the mental hospital during the planning application process. In September 2004 escaped paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett stabbed cyclist Dennis Finnegan to death in Richmond Park.
Reader views (1)
In my opinion, the mental health trust's idea was a good one. It is important that people with mental health problems are accepted into the community at large. I have, myself, been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and am not in any way dangerous to the public. People like myself have a right to be included in society and not vilified and excluded. I am a mother and grandmother and have now managed to rebuilt my life. Schizophrenia can be a devastating illness, even if it can't be cured, it can be lived with. It was prejudice on the part of local people that destroyed the projected Springfield Hospital plan.
Time to Change, as featured on Comic Relief recently, is a campaign that is working to help redress such prejudice. I hope that its message - to create understanding of mental health problems and those who suffer from them, reaches people and helps to counteract the misguided fears of so many in society. Violent acts commited by people who are mentally, or emotionally, ill are, in fact. rare.
- Maureen Oliver, New Malden, UK, 19/03/2009 02:19
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