Clyde Loakes, the council’s deputy leader, said the authority would continue to push for the ‘desperately needed funding’ for a new Whipps Cross Hospital that ‘meets the needs of the community into the 21st century and beyond’, reports Sebastian Mann, Local Democracy Reporter

Waltham Forest Council says the redevelopment of Whipps Cross Hospital must remain a priority amid major cuts to public services.

Plans to rebuild the hospital were unveiled in 2020 as part of the New Hospitals programme, Boris Johnson’s election promise to build 40 new facilities by the end of the decade.

The project was paused on Monday (29th July) by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves as part of her plan to plug a £22billion “hole” left by the previous government.

The “unfunded” scheme will be on hold while it undergoes a “complete review,” Reeves said. She told the House of Commons: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it.”

The ageing Whipps Cross Hospital, in Leytonstone, caters to some 400,000 people across Waltham Forest and Redbridge. Though work is underway on a new 500-space car park, its future has suddenly become uncertain.

Clyde Loakes, the deputy leader of Waltham Forest Council, said the authority would continue to push for the “desperately needed funding” for a new Whipps Cross Hospital that “meets the needs of the community into the 21st century and beyond”.

He said a “modern, state-of-the-art” hospital was “important” for the 400,000 residents relying on it, adding: “They deserve a Whipps Cross that is fit for the future.”

The redevelopment project will also provide hundreds of new homes – mainly for NHS staff – and “create important flood mitigation and protection measures,” Cllr Loakes said. He called the paused scheme a “great example of the new government’s growth agenda”.

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Others are less optimistic. Mary Burnett, speaking on behalf of campaign group Action 4 Whipps, said Monday’s announcement was “hardly a surprise”.

She told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “The last government was never committed to properly funding the new hospitals, including Whipps Cross, and the risk is that this government will be tempted to turn to private finance to close the gap.

“That would mean funding for healthcare being siphoned off to pay shareholder dividends and huge bonuses.”

The group has campaigned over the past four years to ensure the new hospital meets the needs of residents. It has repeatedly clashed with the NHS over the future of the Margaret Centre, a dedicated end-of-life care facility at the hospital that was excluded from the proposed rebuild.

In May, an NHS report revealed that repeated funding delays meant it was “highly unlikely” the hospital would be rebuilt by 2030. Doubts have been repeatedly raised by councillors, and most recently by the chancellor, that the programme was not adequately funded.

Since 2020, only one new hospital had opened under the New Hospitals banner scheme and construction had begun on just six. Reeves said the struggling project had given people “false hope”.

She added the government would produce a “thorough, realistic and costed plan” to replace the project.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting, whose constituency of Ilford North is served by the hospital, previously said: “I want to see the new hospital programme completed but I am not prepared to offer people false hope about how soon they will benefit from the facilities they deserve.”

Prior to the July election, the frontbencher had committed to rebuilding Whipps Cross and five other London hospitals under a Labour government.

The chancellor’s first spending review also saw the government cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners. They were previously available to all, but will now be means-tested.

She also axed a raft of transport projects, including a planned tunnel under Stonehenge.

A spokesperson for Barts Health NHS Trust, which oversees the hospital, said it would “work with national and regional colleagues” to “understand the implications” for a new Whipps Cross Hospital.

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