Dear Mr Johnson,

I welcome the news of your visit to Watford General Hospital on Monday (October 7).

I understand that the purpose of your visit was to publicise the £400 million funding that the government is providing to West Herts Hospital Trust to rebuild the dated and dilapidated Watford General Hospital.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson backs major investment at Watford General Hospital

Watford General Hospital also serves St Albans and Dacorum who have previously had A&E hospitals but whose residents now have to make the arduous journey to their A&E hospital using the often congested roads of West Watford.

Hopefully you have now been made aware during your visit, Watford General Hospital is in the back streets of Watford, right next door to a Premier League football ground and built on a very steep gradient. Not the best location to be undertaking a major redevelopment of a “live” A&E hospital over the next five to ten years.

It is a great shame that campaigners for a new and more central West Herts A&E hospital were not invited to meet you during your visit to explain why they are campaigning for a new build A&E hospital in a more central and accessible location in West Herts. Perhaps you wanted to avoid such a meeting?

I am sure that Sir Mike Penning will have made you aware of the problems with Watford General Hospital and the need for St Albans and Dacorum to have better access to their A&E hospital.

The Government’s £400 million funding to the trust will be well received by the trust management but unless it is used to provide West Herts with a new “state of the art” hospital in a more central West Herts location, this cannot be seen, in my humble opinion, as the best use of such a large sum of public money. Other trusts who received an allocation of the £2.8 billion appear to be looking at the option of a new build on a greenfield site so why is the trust being so dogmatic about keeping West Herts’ A&E hospital at Vicarage Road when it now has a once in a lifetime opportunity to provide what really is needed in West Herts?

You boldly claimed that the money is to be used for new large hospitals - a rebuild of Watford General Hospital and the redevelopment of St Albans City and Hemel Hempstead hospitals will surely cost a lot more than £400 million on offer to the trust and will not be of the standard or have the functionality of a new hospital.

West Herts needs that large new A&E hospital that you promised - not the trust’s plans for a potentially risky and disruptive partial redevelopment of a hospital which is in totally the wrong location to serve the majority of residents in West Herts.

I look forward to receiving your response.

Andrew Love

By email