Sir,

The letter from Ian Williams in last week's Observer was, to say the least, unhelpful.

I don't know what 'meeting before Christmas' he attended, but I have attended dozens and don't remember Mr. Williams participating in any discussions.

It is not true to say Ms. Gwyther and Nick Ainger became involved 'late in the day.' Mr. Williams should be aware of the facts. Prior to the Labour Government of 1997, Tenby was consistently told there was, and never would be, money for a new hospital.

When the Welsh Assembly was created in 1999, money began to flow for the NHS, and in 2000 the Welsh Assembly agreed to commit additional monies for NHS capital expenditure. Some £8 million was promised for the south-east Pembrokeshire area and it was at this point that Ms. Gwyther and Mr. Ainger became totally involved, by ensuring that at least half of that money was set aside for the replacement for Tenby Cottage Hospital which had been under threat of closure - with no replacement planned - for a decade.

In 2002, when Jane Hutt, Minister for Health, created the 22 new Local Health Boards, staffed in the main by local health professionals, she anticipated that these Local Health Boards would represent local needs and wants.

When the Pembrokeshire Local Health Board began its work in April 2003, a very few local people, including myself, Mrs. Pat Wright and the Rev. Nanette Lewis-Head, began attending every monthly meeting, to ascertain how the board planned to spend 'Tenby's' £4 million. From the beginning, the Board had decided to increase capacity at the South Pembs. Hospital and remove all in-patient beds from Tenby, using the money given by the Assembly Government, to build a new resource centre at Tenby, and to commission 10 care beds in the private sector for the people needing in-patients beds.

Since then, the local campaigners, with the stalwart support of Ms. Gwyther and Mr. Ainger, fought these proposals, thinking it better to have in-patient beds inside the new 'centre.'

We have, with Ms. Gwyther's help, led a local campaign by questionnaire, attended many meetings of the LHB and NHS twist, demonstrated with placards, spoken at Board meetings on behalf of the community, obtained direct access to the Minister for Health and the Director of NHS Wales at the Assembly and in Tenby, and put our views as forcefully as we could.

As a result, Mrs. Hutt forced the LHB to 'look again' at their proposals, and this information was in the local press.

Eventually, last December, at a meeting arranged with the Minister, the Director NHS Wales, the chairman and chief executives of both the LHB and NHS Trust, we few local campaigners were given the Minister's decision.

She had consulted widely, taken an unprecedented personal interest in the case, then gave the LHB the go-ahead for their proposals, but on very strict conditions.

Again, all of this was reported in the Observer.

The Tenby Implementation Group was set up as a direct result of the Minister's conditions. At its first meeting, it was made clear by the chairman of the LHB, the project manager, the assistant director for Welsh Health Estates, which commissions and overseas all capital investment projects in the NHS, that this consultation process is breaking new ground. Never before have local people been so involved in the planning and delivery of such new services. And this came about because of the support and co-operation between local campaigners and our AM and MP.

We all acknowledge the debt we owe them.

We are getting a £4 million new facility. And we are getting 10 additional beds. Where they will come from is part of the on-going discussions. There is a great deal to be done even before a stone is laid, and I do hope that Mr. Williams and your other frequent contributor on this subject who lives over the border, will be present at the open-to-the-public meeting on March 12 of the Local Implementation Group, so that they can meet and perhaps talk with the people they continually denigrate.

Most of us have absolutely no personal motive for being involved in all this work, except to try to obtain the best possible health care for local people, and we consider that Christine Gwyther has worked tirelessly on this issue to achieve the best possible outcome.

Mollie Neate,

North Cliff,

Tenby.