“LABOUR pledges to build Shotley Bridge Hospital amid uncertainty” was the headline in The Northern Echo on June 5 with the election fast approaching.

Now, not even four months later, it appears that Health Secretary Wes Streeting is about to pull the plug on the scheme.

The hospital was included among the 40 new hospitals that Boris Johnson pledged to build before 2030, although that entire hospital-building programme has turned out to be just one of fantasies that Mr Johnson served up on a regular basis.

Labour is now arguing that the Conservatives never put aside any money to build the hospital, that it was all just a figment of their imagination, and so the unfunded scheme has to be cancelled because it didn’t exist in the first place.

Local people will be very disappointed if that is the outcome, even if they accept Mr Streeting’s argument about there being no funds.

Shotley Bridge was put forward for rebuilding in 2020 because “it met the longstanding criteria for selection including clinical need and backlog maintenance”. Those needs still exist – and there are no plans to meet them.

The biggest shame is that this is no way to run a country. It’s like a miniature HS2 all over again. How much has been spent over the years assessing the need, drawing up the plans, hiring in architects and getting their designs through the planning process? Probably enough to build a small hospital.

We can’t carry on stopping and starting like this. We have to have a properly funded strategy to reinvest in our NHS over a number of years.

The huge worry is that if our politicians cannot get a small hospital like Shotley Bridge even started, what chances do we have of North Tees ever being rebuilt even though it, too, is reaching the end of its economic life.