'We need it, don't close it' plea over Telford A&E

Don Lloyd, 72, from Hadley, said: "The hospital is a thing that is required, so why close it? I had a collapsed lung and I was rushed into hospital for medical assistance. If I hadn't got there when I did I'd have passed away.

"If I'd have had to travel 40 or 50 minutes down the road, I wouldn't be stood here now.

"Never mind cutbacks – they need to find other things to shut down.

"Telford is getting bigger all the time. It's disgusting that they would close down our A&E department. It's disgusting that they would even think about it."

Wendy Sleight, 74, from Wellington, said: "We need an A&E at both ends. We fought long and hard to get a hospital up here after the little Wrekin hospital closed.

"There's so many houses going up. If people are really ill, Shrewsbury is a long way to go. I lost my daughter two years ago. She'd never been ill. She was only 48.

"They got her to the hospital within minutes. They were fantastic, but they couldn't do anything for her unfortunately.

"If they'd have had to take her to Shrewsbury, that might have contributed to us losing her. I just think it's all politics. They've spent all that money and now they're going to close it. What's the point? It's just throwing good after bad.

"I don't think Telford needs one more than Shrewsbury. I think we both need one.

"They've got people on that end coming from Oswestry and that service is brilliant too. I think we need two, and we just need to get the sums right."

Paul Chand, 42, from Hadley, who works at Morrisons, said: "Will ambulances be able to make it to Shrewsbury in time? What happens if an ambulance breaks down on the motorway?

"At the end of the day if someone is travelling an extra 20 miles, that could easily be life and death."

"It's like not having a local shop. If you've got to travel 20 miles to get your shop, someone would say 'hold on, we need facilities here'.

"If I had to pick one, I'd say Shrewsbury is looking dated. It needs work doing to it. They should take the A&E from there and put the resources here.

Clive Smith, 77, from Wellington, added: "It seems to me that the people who plan these things say there are financial restraints, but they've spent how many millions on the maternity unit?

"The Shrewsbury one was becoming unusable, or so they said. It was falling to bits so they said lets build it in Telford.

"I realise it's expensive, but I still believe there should be two. "There are no services in mid-Wales at all. They can go to Wrexham or Swansea, but that's it. Mid-Wales folks are stuck coming into Shropshire.

"If there had to be only one, I would favour a brand new service.

"It would have to be somewhere in the centre. It should be in the middle.

As I live here it's probably self-preservation I've got in mind. But Telford is a big town with a lot of people in it. It needs an A&E, so there should be both or one in the middle."

Salesman David Hughes, 36, lives in Wellington. He said: "This shouldn't have even come onto the agenda. When you look at the size of both areas, closing one of them is stupid.

"I think the government wastes so much money on publicity and paperwork, and it's crazy.

"There's always been this Telford Shrewsbury debate, and people are so angry.

"The borough is too big to go without a hospital. We're too close to the West Midlands and Wales not to have a hospital.

"This is why they need to keep both of them open, get it sorted and get things in motion."