“Clear and strong bias” claim over hospital site

Friday 05 February 2016

Campaigners have uncovered what they say is clear evidence that ministers are trying to sway public opinion towards building the new hospital on the controversial People’s Park site.

They say that by digging into the source-coding of the website, they have found that the artist’s impression of a new hospital at People’s Park was created in November 2014 – seven months before the Health Minister told the States that it was on the shortlist of sites.

And they say that is just one of a number of things that shows that the information campaign about the new hospital is trying to sway public opinion towards building the hospital on the park - including the fact that the Town Park image always pops up first on the site.

The website was launched this week to try to give the public information about the options for the site of the new hospital – which also include the Waterfront, Overdale, the existing site and an option to split the hospital across two sites – ahead of a major eight-week consultation exercise.

But for the last few weeks there has been strong speculation that the Health department has already decided that it wants to use the People’s Park for the site.

That plan would be made more complicated by the fact that the park is owned by the Parish of St Helier, and town Constable Simon Crowcroft has ruled out a deal to sell it, and has forced a States debate to remove it from the shortlist.

The website saw 3,844 unique users in its first two days, with almost 20,000 page views.

But the Save People’s Park Committee say that the “clear and strong bias” in favour of the park is shown by:

- The fact that the artist’s impression for the People’s Park is always the first to appear on the website’s homepage.

- The same image always appears when the page is shared on social media, and is the image chosen for the Director of Future Hospital’s Facebook profile.

- The image was uploaded in November 2014 (according to the source coding of the site) although it was only publicly revealed in July 2015.

- The site says a hospital on the Waterfront would be against the Island Plan, but the page for the People’s Park doesn’t mention that it too would be against the plan.

- The extra cost of the People’s Park option in terms of buying up parts of the hospital block and levelling it to create a replacement park have been left off the site.

- The site doesn’t show what the People’s Park option would look like from street level – unlike all of the other options.

The campaign group has sent an open letter to Health Minister Andrew Green with 22 questions about the plans – they say that the site makes the whole information/consultation exercise look like a spin campaign.

They say: “We have grave concerns that despite public assurances that the Future Hospital team and ministers would not express a preference for one of the four short-listed sites, there is clear and strong bias towards the use of People’s Park.”