Can you help save St Michael's?

From the archive, first published Friday 27th Apr 2007.

A pensioners campaigner is appealing to the "learned" people of Braintree to help save St Michael's hospital.

Chairman of Braintree Pensioners Action Group, Phyllis Webb, would like to look into the history and deeds of the hospital to find out if it originally belonged to the people of the district.

Planning permission for St Michael's to be turned into luxury flats was granted by Braintree District Council last month, but Mrs Webb, 77, said she would like to find out the history of the building to see if it holds clues about the original ownership, after watching an episode of TV's The Royal.

She said: "In the programme, they investigated the deeds of the hospital and found that if the NHS didn't want it, it went back to the original owner -in that case it was a family.

"St Michael's used to be a workhouse in the late 1800s, then it was an infirmary, and then a hospital. Originally, hospitals were funded by local people.

"We've got so many learned people in Essex. I was thinking there night be a solicitor or a historian that could look into it, for the town. There must be someone who knows where the deeds are -the NHS, when it took the hospital over, it would have the deeds."

Mrs Webb admits that it might be a long-shot. She said: "I'm just clutching at straws, really. I don't have the skills to look into it. But wouldn't it be nice, if we can find something there that saves it? We've got to explore all avenues."

A spokesman for Mid-Essex Hospitals Trust said: "St Michael's hospital has been sold. Mid Essex Hospitals, as the owner, to sell the hospital to the housing developer, we would have to be the rightful owner."