Mr R D Feltham's campaign for a new Trowbridge Hospital is worthy of support. However, as I mentioned in a previous letter, this support needs to be tempered with a healthy dose of realism.

Again, I am most surprised and disappointed that officers and members of the West Wiltshire Primary Care Trust have not seen fit to enter into this correspondence and fully explain the extent of their funding deficit.

One wonders if they read the local papers.

Can I suggest that the Wiltshire Times publish a special report similar to the excellent one on local schools' funding crisis on the true state of health funding in the area?

This should also include the large deficits in Bath and Bristol that the people of west Wiltshire are being expected to partially cover.

Once we have got these figures out in the open, it should be possible to engage in a meaningful debate. This debate must include political responses to these deficits. Only then can a campaign for a new Trowbridge Hospital succeed.

J OSBORN

County and District Councillor

Trowbridge