Letter to the editor: It is good news Bromley Council has entered the debate on the direction of our NHS even though rejected supporting a neighbouring council’s hospital which is being shafted by the government (Call For Support Falls Flat At Council Meeting, News Shopper, March 13).

Bromley Council was not so forward in a debate in the 1990s when its own hospital and health care was shafted by the then government.

Before the Princess Royal University Hospital opened on April 1, 2003, Bromley was fortunate in possessing a centrally cited hospital which, with re-building, would have adequately served the area for the foreseeable future.

But with both political parties virtually in the pocket of business interests, the infamous Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes were cooked up.

This resulted in the area’s NHS handing over the assets of four hospitals and 30 acres of land to parasitic property developers who took the profits and left us, the taxpayers, with the risks.

We know now this risk meant the new hospital at Farnborough was bankrupt from the day it opened and every calamity occurring within our area’s healthcare service stems from this.

There were no rich pickings for the property developers at Lewisham Hospital, so they were left to their own devices and up to now this hospital is economically viable.

Bromley Council naturally would not agree to this record of events but, in failing to show solidarity with a neighbouring council, it is acting against the grain society is moving to — we have to co-operate more even if it means less ideology.

There should be a Judicial Review of all the PFIs where the taxpayer has been forced to pay for the profits of the private sector, which has and will continue to leech off public services.

Bromley Council should be supportive of this due to the asset stripping of our health services throughout the controversial PFI scheme.

Bill Mason, Dunar Avenue, Beckenham