Above is the leaflet that was distibuted by Waltham Forest Save our NHS to advertise the public meeting they hosted on Zoom to disseminate information on the plans to rebuild Whipps Cross Hospital in the near future, and to make people aware of what the issues are in these still very shadowey proposals.

With more than 100 Zoom visitors the event was well attended and speakers including Leyton and Wanstead MP John Cryer were lucid in pointing out the many unanswered questions about the most basic aspects of the scheme. Is it true that the new hospital will have fewer beds than the one it is to replace? Is there some plausible argument that this will be counterbalanced by more "care in the community"? How much of the land enclosed by the present hospital complex and the old nurses' accommodation will be sold off, and how many new residents will be crammed onto it? What kind of green credentials will the new hospital buildings and the new transport system that will inevitably be needed possess? What input will ordinary Waltham Forest and Redbridge people have into the decision-making?

These and many other aspects of the scheme are analysed in some detail by the speakers and there is a lively question-and-answer session afterwards.

The decision to allow Forest Radio to record the meeting and make the proceedings permanently available here means that some of the more technical and subtle points can be replayed more than once for a better understanding, and referenced in future discussions. The "pause" button allows charts and texts used in the presentations to be viewed at leisure and website and email addresses noted down.

Also the pauses and the technical management of the session, such as explaining which buttons to press, have been edited out, while all the rest of the discussion is included, making the session more compact and and easier to follow for the Forest Radio audience.

We hope that we have helped Waltham Forest Save our NHS in some small way to put these proposals high up on the local agenda so that the opportunity to have a really first class new hospital on the Whipps Cross site is not lost.