FED up Otley town councillors could go to court over scaled down plans for a new Wharfedale hospital.

The council feels cheated after original pledges for services planned for the new hospital made two years ago appear to have been drastically reduced without public consultation.

And now the council considering seeking a judicial review to see if the health authority has acted legally and whether it has carried out enough public consultation.

The council is also to strongly object to the fresh proposals. It plans to call on the support of local GPs and wants the health authority to ask people if they would be happy with a smaller hospital - which could involve lower safety standards.

It also wants to see a separate group made up of the district's Primary Care Groups to be concerned specifically with the new Wharfedale hospital.

Councillor Phil Coyne (Lab, Ashfield) said the council was at a very early stage in its attempts to seek a judicial review but added councillors felt badly let down by the consultation process.

"A service plan was put forward two years ago that was widely consulted on but that was overturned by an internal management meeting and that is unacceptable. We are going to end up with a clinic and not a hospital and it is just not acceptable to the local population," said Coun Coyne.

The current public consultation - looking into the reconfiguration of Leeds health services - will finish on Friday but the council is unhappy that no public meetings were held in Otley.

Coun Coyne added: "We want advice on whether the current consultation is adequate to meet Government requirements."

The council is unhappy that proposed services at the new 'locality' hospital differ from earlier proposals and appear to no longer include provisions for overnight surgery.

Councillor Jim Spencer (Lib Dem, West Chevin), chairman of the council's finance and general purposes committee, said the provision of overnight stay surgery was central to the hospital.

"Overnight stay surgery is a huge thing, it means a whole different league of surgery. Take that away and the hospital becomes not much more than a clinic," he said.

Coun Spencer said the most important thing for the council was to get in its objections before tomorrow 's deadline.

A spokesman for Leeds Health Authority said it was coming to the end of an extensive public consultation and had not as yet been made aware of any comments from Otley Town Council.

"All comments from the public consultation will be considered at a specially convened public meeting which will be held on June 19 in Leeds Civic Hall. All are welcome to the meeting," said the spokesman.

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