So the people did come. Having put out hundreds of postcards to ramp up public pressure – the people did come.

The Labour government policy on health means that there is only one game in town – a LIFT project, which will require winning bids and selling off land to fund it.

But it’s very risky. There are absolutely no guarantees that we won’t just see the land being sold off, the old hospital building being demolished – but then the bid for funding doesn’t win and we’re left with absolutely sweet FA.

I remain open to listening to anyone who can come up with a viable alternative, but so far there appears to really only be one game in town.

Against that background however, is the genuine commitment of the Primary Care Trust’s team to get this through, the backing and interest from the local commissioning west Haringey doctors. So on balance I would rather put pressure on this to make sure something happens than not.

So what I would like to do is get everyone in the area to support the bid (to be in by the end of September) with a letter-writing lobbying campaign to up the odds of getting the bid for funding. Am currently investigating who best to lobby.

I am also going to try and get to see the new Chief Executive of the London-wide Health Authority to argue for a guarantee that if the land is sold the money comes back to that site. This is against the policy of the Health Trust who say that it will go in a pot and is LIKELY to come back. Likely isn’t good enough for those of us who have campaigned for ever for this. So I will try and get a meeting to ask for a cast iron guarantee and if necessary will campaign for that too.

If we can get the bid and ring-fence the proceeds of any sale then perhaps we can succeed.

This is all dicey. But the fight has to be to get proper health facilities here for us, after years of promises.