ONCE again we appear to have lost sight of a new hospital for Otley. Despite reassurances from health chiefs more than two years ago that building work on a new hospital would start in June this year, we are still months away from even getting planning permission.

After months of indecision, when even the owners of the Otley site got fed up, the health trust finally put in an application for the land next to Garnett's mill off the Pool Road. But by then, Garnett's had run out of patience and had gone down the other road of trying to build houses on the same site.

Despite fears of flooding, the health trust has forged ahead with its plan for Garnetts and is waiting to hear back from the planning authority - but just how much of the original £10 million will be taken up on flood defences and the stilted road to the hospital?

Now we're at the end of yet another public consultation - but this time its all about the reconfiguration of the whole of Leeds health services.

Two years ago, hundreds of people packed public meetings to be told just what they could expect in the new hospital. The cynics, who had heard it all before, gave the health chiefs a hard time. But others were heartened, it seemed we were at last going to get a hospital worthy of the numbers it was expected to cater for.

Now it seems the cynics were right. We are way, way off a start date. People are already saying the hospital will never be built in Otley and even if it is it will only be a glorified health centre.

Most worryingly, the promise of extensive public consultation has just not materialised - massive consultation it may well be, but only in Leeds - it just has not filtered through to where it matters and people once again are feeling badly let down.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.