Readers of your letters pages will surely have concluded that the Liberal Democrats are already in seasonal pantomime mode.

Their constant assertion of, “Oh, no you didn’t” to Labour’s decision to give the go-ahead to new hospital building in west Watford is becoming laughable.

Plans that were tragically scrapped by the incoming Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition government after 2010 Dorothy, her husband and the Lib Dems go even further by outrageously claiming that it was they who ‘saved’ the hospital for Watford. ‘Boo’ you may shout.

So just what are the facts? What does the record show? Well, this actually: The Estates Strategy of the West Herts Hospitals Trust (WHHT) in October 2008 laid down a plan and timetable for the building of a 610 bed hospital at Watford to be completed by 2015.

READ MORE: Lib Dems failed the NHS

The hospital would be built with Private Finance (PFI) money, which in all cases would be underwritten by government.

The go-ahead by the Labour government (as in all capital projects) was conditional on the trust submitting a business case, and Watford was on the government’s list of new hospital PFI schemes.

So WHHT appointed a PFI Director to draw up the business case as the 2007/2008 WHHT annual report noted.

Also in October 2008 the Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) Health Scrutiny Committee set up a ‘Topic Group’ to monitor the hospital development.

In January 2009 this group received a presentation from the WHHT PFI project director on the hospital construction plans including a new road.

The minutes clearly state ‘Members noted the hospital would be funded through PFI.’ In March 2009, after 20 years of indecision, acute hospital services were finally consolidated at Watford, with the A&E department Hemel Hempstead closing.

The final decision owed much to the efforts of Watford’s Labour MP Claire Ward who had tirelessly lobbied government ministers for years, to the fury of Hemel’s Tory MP, that Watford was the hospital site to be developed.

READ MORE: Labour sneer at campus

To accommodate the extra capacity, the then government funded the a new A&E department and AAU centre at Watford, which was opened by Labour’s Secretary of State Andy Burnham and Claire Ward MP in February 2010 and covered by the Watford Observer. In fact spending on the NHS tripled under the Labour government.

In May 2010 the Liberal Democrats went into coalition with the Conservatives to form a new government.

All was still going to plan until March 2011 when the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government (that Watford Liberal Democrats supported) announced a suspension of all hospital PFI schemes pending a review.

Eventually a new ‘PFI 2’ was agreed by government and the suspension lifted – but not in Watford. Whilst other hospital rebuilding schemes such as the Royal Liverpool got final approval to start building work, Watford’s scheme was not only suspended but now removed from the government’s list of hospital developments altogether.

And so, over eight years on, not a brick has been laid and all we get from the Mayor and the Liberal Democrats is lots of propaganda and self-congratulation

To conclude, the record shows that:

1. The Labour Government had given the go ahead for a new hospital at Watford, subject as in all cases to final business approval.

2. The new road into the hospital had also been agreed under Labour and owes nothing to the Lib Dem Council.

3. It was the Conservative Government in coalition with the Liberal Democrats that scrapped the plans to rebuild our hospital.

4. It was the Labour government that decided to consolidate services at Watford Hospital and that decision had nothing whatsoever to do with the Mayor, who is never shy for claiming the credit for anything including getting out of bed in the morning we shouldn’t wonder.

5. Had Labour still been in government Watford would have had its new hospital by now.

As the record shows and people know, only Labour can be trusted with the running of the NHS.

So the answer to the distortions of the Liberal Democrats is that “Oh yes Labour did support the NHS, and oh yes Labour did plan a new Watford Hospital”.

Nigel Bell, Leader of the Labour Group, Watford Council, Town Hall, Watford Mike Jackson Chair, Watford Labour Party St Albans Road, Watford