Kettering General Hospital plans to come under scrutiny by north unitary
The new Labour government's review of the national hospital rebuild programme could affect Kettering.
By Sarah Ward
Plans for a replacement hospital in Kettering will be put under the microscope by North Northamptonshire Council’s health scrutiny committee next month.
Just days after getting into office, chancellor Rachel Reeves threw a potential spanner into the works regarding the long promised hospital by announcing a complete review of the new build hospital programme pledged by former PM Boris Johnson.
Her fiscal mantra that ‘if we can’t afford it, we can’t have it’ has caused local concern, that the project, which is due to go on the existing site as part of a managed rebuild, will be canned.
The new Labour MP for the area, Rosie Wrighting, has said she wants an urgent meeting with health secretary Wes Streeting about the matter, which was one of her key election pledges, and the leader of the council, Conservative Jason Smithers, also told the local democracy reporting service, that he would be holding the new government’s ‘feet to the fire’ about the hospital and the hundreds of m…