Good News and Bad News on Investment for Charing Cross
Report back from Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith and Chiswick
With local campaigner Louanne Tranchell (left) who passed away earlier this month
January 27, 2025
The Justice Select Committee, which I chair, has been busy in the last couple of weeks, we held our first public evidence session of the year with the Attorney and Solicitor General. In the session we discussed the role of the Law Officers in Government – how they support Ministers, uphold the rule of law, ensure we meet our human rights obligations around the world and superintend Government agencies like the Serious Fraud Office. The Justice Committee’s inquiry on tackling drugs in prisons is accepting evidence until the 31 January, you can find out more about this here.
Recently, in Parliament, I spoke about the appalling state of prison maintenance and asked the Minister what the timetable is for repairing the problems in prisons and getting to grips with the maintenance backlog that was left by the previous government. You can read any of my contributions in Parliament here .
Holocaust Memorial Day takes place every year on the 27 January to remember the six million Jews along with those from other groups who were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Holocaust Memorial Day was marked in Parliament with a moving service in the Portcullis House Atrium on Wednesday last week and I will be attending the annual commemoration event in Hammersmith on Monday.
Many of you in Hammersmith will have been waiting, as I was, for the update on the “New Hospitals Programme”. There was good and bad news in the announcements last week. All the Imperial College hospitals, Charing Cross, Hammersmith and St Mary’s, now have their place in the programme confirmed and the very substantial funding they will need for improvement will be delivered. However, the major work will now not be completed until towards the end of the next decade.
It's useful at this time to remember how we got here. Five years ago, Charing Cross was still under threat of demolition, but the seven-year battle fought by residents and the Save Our Hospitals campaign meant that the hospital was saved. However, it was clear at that stage that it, along with St Mary’s and Hammersmith hospitals, would need very substantial investment. Unfortunately, despite putting these schemes into the “New Hospitals Programme,” no funding was allocated and two years ago they were removed from the funded schemes altogether.
Since the election we've been waiting for the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, to announce the future of the programme. That announcement came on 20 January and it confirmed that all the schemes in the programme would go ahead, but because of the spiralling cost and the addition of new schemes from the collapsing RAAC hospitals, the programme stretched well into the 2030s. What this means for Imperial is that whereas the planning works can begin sooner, the actual rebuilding will now be in the stage three programme which begins in 2035.
Of course this is disappointing, although we can take comfort in the fact that the future of these hospitals is secure and in time they will be funded. In the meantime, they will continue to provide a world class clinical service, but I just wish for the sake of patients and the staff who work there every day that we could accelerate the improvement timetable.
You may already know that twoby-elections are being held in Hammersmith & Fulham on the 20 February, both in Lillie and in Hammersmith Broadway. I must thank both my colleague Ben Coleman MP, who has been an excellent councillor in Lillie for more than ten years, and Emma Apthorp, who has done brilliant work since she was elected in Hammersmith Broadway in 2022, for their hard work and dedication to the people they represented over the years.
Please remember, you must bring some form of accepted photo ID to the polling station to be able to vote on the day. If you live in either ward, please do get out and vote for your new councillors. Full information about the by-election, including the deadlines for registering can be found on the Council's website . If you are unsure what ward you live in, you can check the Council's website for further details and for a map of each ward: Lillie Ward , Hammersmith Broadway Ward .
Congratulations to local residents, Frank Kelly and Sharon Tomlin for being named in The King’s New Year Honours List. Frank is a professor at Imperial College and was awarded a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to air pollution research and to human health. Sharon, who works at Sobus , was awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) for her service to the Black community in Hammersmith & Fulham.
Finally, I was very sad to hear of the passing of Louanne Tranchell earlier this month. Louanne was a principled campaigner who was always fighting on behalf of local people in Hammersmith & Fulham. She was elected as a Labour Councillor in 1994 and was instrumental in the running of what was the Hammersmith Community Trust. Her principles, her patience and her tenacity were examples to all of us. I know she will be sadly missed by the many people whose lives she touched, and my thoughts are with her family.
Andy
andy@andyslaughter.com
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