Dr Al Pinkerton MP wrote at length in his News & Mail column last week about his concerns for the proposed site of the new Frimley Park Hospital. The Liberal Democrat MP for Surrey Heath also raised them at Prime Minister’s Questions, only to draw a testy response from Sir Keir Starmer.

Disappointed with the Prime Minister’s reply he questioned him once more by letter, which we reproduce here.

This is how it all unfolded:

Prime Minister’s Questions, 1 July: Dr Al Pinkerton MP:

“Everyone in my constituency of Surrey Heath wants a new Frimley Park hospital, but the chosen site — the last remaining fragment of the ancient Frimley common — is wholly inappropriate. It is inaccessible, behind multiple schools, and environmentally devastating. Worse, over recent weeks, I have received deeply troubling evidence that the preferred relocation site was known and being openly discussed by local political figures in 2023, before the official site selection process had even begun. The entirely reasonable conclusion is that this project has been compromised from the outset and the site predetermined. I think the Prime Minister would agree that this is no way to begin a multibillion-pound public procurement process, so will he please step in, commission an urgent independent review —

[The Speaker cuts off the end of the question]

The Prime Minister

"The hon. Gentleman’s NHS trust has identified its preferred site for the new Frimley Park hospital, and detailed technical work can now start. Let us be frank about this hospital. The Tories promised 40 new hospitals with no funding and no delivery plan, and we have had to fix that. Thanks to Labour investment, the hon. Gentleman’s hospital is at the front of the queue. It will be one of the first in the country to be rebuilt, but his approach has been, on the one hand, to demand a new hospital, and then to oppose actually building it. He has urged his constituents to oppose it because, to quote him, ‘if this hospital goes ahead, there will be no golf course’.

“Labour is building new hospitals, and the hon. Gentleman is standing up for golf courses. I cannot think of anything more Lib Dem."

Then, on 3 July, Dr Pinkerton wrote to Sir Keir:

Dear Prime Minister,

I am writing following your response to my question at Prime Minister’s Questions on 1 July regarding the proposed relocation of Frimley Park Hospital.

This has never been about protecting a golf course. Nor is it about opposing a new hospital. Everyone in Surrey Heath wants to see Frimley Park Hospital rebuilt as quickly as possible. The existing hospital, riddled with RAAC, must be replaced. The issue is whether it is being built in the right place.

The proposed site at Frimley Fuel Allotments is, in my view, fundamentally unsuitable. It would create serious transport and accessibility problems, particularly for disadvantaged groups and communities who may be pushed further from care. It would destroy part of the historic Frimley Common, enclosed in 1801 and used extensively for physical exercise and recreation. It would require substantial infrastructure investment that has yet to be properly costed, and it raises significant questions about the integrity of the site selection process.

It would also place one of the region’s busiest hospitals in direct - and potentially dangerous - conflict with more than 3,300 pupils attending six schools that surround the site. Ambulances, emergency vehicles, hospital traffic and school traffic would all be competing for access through the same already constrained residential road network at peak times. That issue alone deserves far greater scrutiny than it has so far received.

I was therefore disappointed that your response at PMQs did not engage with these substantive concerns. Your office had advance notice of my question and received a detailed briefing beforehand. My constituents deserved answers, not political point-scoring. The principal issues requiring urgent attention are straightforward.

First, accessibility. The proposal would place significant additional pressure on roads including The Maultway, Old Bisley Road, Upper Chobham Road and Tomlinscote Way. Residents have still not seen credible plans demonstrating how these impacts would be mitigated or funded at scale.

Secondly, financial transparency. During discussions with representatives of Frimley Health, NHS officials and your department, I have been given no confidence that the full infrastructure requirements have been costed. Indeed, I have been told that major transport works have neither been fully budgeted nor funded, and that they may instead fall upon the scheme’s contingency allocation. Given the scale of this investment, that is deeply concerning.

Thirdly, the integrity of the site selection process. My office has now begun contacting owners of alternative sites that were reportedly considered. Several have told me they were not contacted during the site assessment process and only heard from Frimley Health on the evening before Frimley Fuel Allotments was announced as the preferred location.

If those accounts are correct, serious questions arise about whether all realistic alternatives were properly explored. This concern is reinforced by evidence suggesting that the Frimley Fuel Allotments site was being discussed publicly by political figures, including a Minister of the Crown, before the formal process had concluded. That, too, requires explanation.

Finally, the proposal does not appear to have modelled its wider net health impact, including the effect on disadvantaged groups and communities moved further away from care, the loss of local leisure and exercise facilities, and the potential impact of extended blue-light transfer times.

Without that work, it is difficult to see how the proposal can demonstrate strategic alignment with the Government’s stated aim of shifting care left - towards prevention, community provision and earlier intervention.

Since raising these issues with the Leader of the House in March, and subsequently through correspondence and parliamentary questions to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, I have yet to receive any meaningful ministerial engagement.

Accordingly, I ask that the Government:

· Pauses the current site selection process while these concerns are properly examined;

· Commissions an independent review of the site selection process and its wider health, financial, transport and environmental impacts;

· Publishes the evidence, scoring methodology and financial assessments underpinning the preferred site decision;

· Publishes the full infrastructure costs associated with the proposal; and

· Arranges a meeting between you, the Secretary of State and me to discuss these matters

This is a project worth almost £2 billion that will shape healthcare provision across north-east Hampshire, east Berkshire and west Surrey for generations. Decisions of this magnitude must be demonstrably evidence-based, financially robust and capable of commanding public confidence.

I hope you will now ensure that these legitimate concerns receive the careful consideration they deserve. My constituents are entitled to confidence that the right hospital will be built in the right place, following a process that is transparent, rigorous and beyond reproach.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Al Pinkerton MP

Member of Parliament for Surrey Heath