A FORMER Mount Vernon Hospital employee has said it’s ‘no surprise’ the site has been included in the council’s future plans for more housing.
The hospital closed last month after a new way of delivering care was commissioned by the Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group.
People who are not ill enough to be in hospital, but are too ill to go home are now cared for in a transition ward at Barnsley Hospital, and in the community (in care homes).
At this week’s planning board meeting, Joe Jenkinson, head of planning, said the site had now been included in the council’s Local Plan which provides planning policy for the future development of Barnsley up to 2033.
This is because the housing requirement has gone up by 600 homes, with the independent planning inspector scrutinising the local plan recommending the number of houses planned is increased.
Joe said the council had written to landowners to see if the identified sites were available, and said bosses at South West Yorkshire NHS Foundation Trust had said the site was ‘surplus to requirements and available for housing.’
But a member of staff who worked at Mount Vernon for almost 30 years before taking redundancy, said: “I’m not surprised in the least, it just confirms what we have thought for a long time. I’m just so annoyed that no one seems to give a damn.
“Where are these poor souls going to go? It’s the same patients in a worse situation.
“There has been no thought of an alternative. Fair enough if they want to sell the land, but they should have provided somewhere similar. There were six wards it would have been cheaper to refurbish those six wards than start again.
“What is going to happen to me when I am 70? Where am I going to go? Will Barnsley get the money? Will they be building some more wards? We were told there were going to be beds on the community, but as far as I know, there are no beds in the community.
“Mental health seems to be the fashionable illness at the moment. If you’re old, vulnerable or disabled then no one seems to care.”
