Residents of Caerphilly have been invited to an event to find out more on plans to transform the original Caerphilly Miners’ Hospital building into a community centre.
Developers Lovell and United Welsh are set to deliver a £9.6 million redevelopment scheme for the historic site with 82 two, three and four-bedroom homes. The new estate will be called the Beeches Village.
Built in 1924, The Miners’ Hospital was paid for by the miners of the Rhymney Valley after they each put aside 6d out of their weekly wage of 12s 6d to raise the £30,000 needed.
The scheme aims to keep the 88-year-old Beeches main hospital building with a major fundraising campaign underway to turn it into the Caerphilly Miners Community Centre.
Between 10am and 1pm on Saturday May 19 at the Twyn Community Centre, Caerphilly town, the charitable group behind the community centre project will be holding an event about its fundraising plans.
The discussion will also focus on opportunities for volunteering.
The Miners’ Hospital closed last year with services transferred to the new Ysbyty Ystrad Fawr hospital in Ystrad Mynach.
Lovell is currently on site starting demolition work with the construction of the new homes set to begin shortly. The overall scheme is due to be completed in Summer 2014.
Gareth Davies, head of development at United Welsh, said: “The need for quality housing in Caerphilly is growing daily. This unique combination tenure of homes will serve the community well. By delivering The Beeches Village, this partnership is actively tackling the need for new homes for all head on.”
This whole episode is a disgrace, Caerphilly has lost a hospital and ben given a whiteelephant in Ystrad Mynach,> there is no A and e and we have in effect have to go to the Heath (if they will have us)or the Royal Gwent, which is not easy by bus. The people involved ought to ashamed of themselves, but instead they offer us yet more housing and a community centre, when we need a hospital.
John, I couldn't disagree with you more. The Miner's hospital was a crumbling outdated ruin and anyone who has now been to the new hospital at Ystrad Fawr will immediately appeciate the difference. The new location is also much more accessible to people in the North of the borough. So to correct your mis-assertion, we DO have a local hospital. It has an emergency centre, which means it can deal with most of the minor accidents that the old 9-5 A&E in the Miner's previoiusly dealt with. Anything more serious was dealt with by either the Heath or Gwent anyway, even when the Miner's was there.
Yet more housing?? Don't we actually have a housing shortage, especially in the social sector? 60 of the 82 proposed homes offer affordable rental or equity share scheme options to those who are unable to buy their own homes outright, so that cannot be a bad use of the old site, can it?
John Owen is right, I cannot agree with Rob Roffe. The the assessment centre at Ystrad Fawr cannot deal with emergencies of any kind, let alone provide the treatment offered by the Miners Hospital at their A & E. A minor injury is referred straight away to the Royal Gwent, as for more serious injuries or illness there are now no facilities closer than Cardiff. I remind readers that the Miners also used to provide 24 A & E and cardiac care. The only patients that were ever transferred were serious burns and these patients were stabilised at the Miners before they were moved to Chepstow for specialist care.
As for the "housing shortage" I provide energy performance certificates for Landlords and those selling houses. I Know of many properties in the area that have been empty for years, one house in the centre of town has been vacant for 10 years. It would be a far better use of resources to bring these properties back into use as homes rather than constantly trying to find parcels of land to build yet more.
The Miners Hospital has gone, that battle is lost. We now need to campaign to have proper facilities installed at the £172 million assesment centre at Ystrad Fawr. This is the wish of all the people I have spoken to, with the exception of some rather sheepish politicians who continue to laud what John Owen refers to as a ' White Elephant'.
I`ve been there, it looks good, but thats about all, my son broke his wrist inthe New Year and they couldnt detect it, and many people I speak to, have had similar experiences of the hospital.I wonder if there is a housing shortage in Caerphilly,I was involved in the 1970s and 80s in the old Civic Society and we found in public enquiries on Structure Plans there was always a predict and provide attitude to housing in the area. In the past much of the social housing provision went to people from outside the area.
Sorry to be wingeing on about the Miners` Hospital, but, almost every night Wales Today shows protestors objecting to cutbacks and centralisation affecting hospitals in Llanelli, Aberyswyth and Haverfordwest. Yet, in Caerphilly we lost a very good hospital to build a £172million assessment centre at Ystrad Mynach, with little or no protest. If this were Llanelli, Aberyswyth or Haverfordwest, people would be protesting at the fact that they had to travel to another hospital for treatment. To put things in perspective, in 1958, I came off my bike in Gypsy`s lane, and fractured my skull, my mother was told, if I`d had to go to the Royal Infirmary in Cardiff, rather than the Miners`, I would be dead. At the time Caerphilly was a small town, 64 years later, it has grown to be at least three times as big, but we have a far worse hospital service and we know who to blame. We have an Orwellian 1984 situation where we are told "Worse is better" may be some people believe it, but I dont.
Rob is ignoring the fact, when he tries to compare like with like in respect to the Miners and the new Cottage Hospital replacement at Ystrad Mynach.
The fact is that both Plaid Cymru and Labour parties laud the facilities at this hospital and have always refered to it as a ` general hospital, it is not, it is, a clinic, a recovery facility,and to a certain extent, a respite facility. The minor injuries unit is no more than my Doctor provides. The story goes that at MOST times there is not a Doctor in the house. This is not so say that what is provided is not the best, I am sure it is under the circumstances, and, the nurses and practitioner nurses provide a proper professional level of medical care to patients.
A neighbour of mine was recently taken to this facility and admitted with severe chest pains, this was done because the waiting time to unload ambulances at the Heath was almost an hour, before triage. He was seen at Ystrad Mynach only by a nurse and was given a room, No pillow, no remote for the TV, ( SEVEN MISSING) nowhere to buy a book or paper at that time of the day, after being provided with the room he was not seen by a nurse for a further five hours.The fact is that not enough money is being invested in this facility to make it 21st century hospital providing 21st century care.
The 21st century health provision which all politicians consider the new hospital to be cannot be compared with the limited range of health provisions which was provided by the miners, we should, surly, have moved on to a more comprehensive health facilities in the valley, but we have not.
Richard is, of course, right when he says that there are a lot of empty properties and that they should be brought back into use. They are only part of the solution – the growth in single people in particular means that we still need many more properties to meet demand.
No matter where a hospital is located, someone will always be dissatisfied. Too many people get fixated on the building itself rather than the quality of the service. Would people rather have a better service that they had to travel to, or a second rate doorstep service? Throw the economic climate into the mix and our health commissioners are put into an impossible position. We cannot have the penny and the bun.
I cannot understand Rob Roffe's point. What we have at Ystrad Fawr is a second rate service which the people of this town have to travel to. Having spent the penny (to the tune of £172 million) I would now like to have the bun! My late mother spent time in all the local hospitals last year, including the new assessment centre. For standard of care I rated the Miners and Rhymney (Redwood) highly, better than Ystrad Fawr and Royal Gwent.
On the housing situation figures sent to me by my accreditation body indicate that there are 26,000 properties in Wales that have been vacant for more than one year. I have no argument against building homes when there is a local need but we need to ensure greater levels of occupancy for our existing housing stock first. In the particular case of our town we just do not have the infrastructure or employment to deal with further increases in population.
I read that 60 out of the 82 homes proposed for the old Miners site are to be social housing. Does this mean 60 problem families from god knows where to be housed on St Martins Road, which is,at the moment one of the better areas in Caerphilly, but just watch the house prices drop. The Labour Party were behind the closure of the Miners, and have never had a good election result in the St Martins ward. So are these families being relocated there to vote Labour, or to spite the local residents?. The way St Ilans School on Pontygwindy Road was closed by the Labour Party, to be replaced by housing , to spite the local Plaid members suggests they are not above such tactics. To make it worse when Plaid decided to use keep the site in Education and provide a new Welsh medium school, the Labour Party started Chines whispers that Plaid had close the previous school in ored to build a welsh medium school. I sugges this decisionshould be reviewed by the Ombudsman. It looks to me as bad as the balck propaganda the Labour used over the Blackwood Morrisons.
Rob Roffe tries to defend the indefensible, when he says:-
"Too many people get fixated on the building itself rather than the quality of the service. Would people rather have a better service that they had to travel to, or a second rate doorstep service? Throw the economic climate into the mix and our health commissioners are put into an impossible position. We cannot have the penny and the bun."
Regarding the Miners I was not fixated on the building as such but I feel we had a better service there. Surely what we have now in Caerphilly is no service at all, and we have to travel to Ystrad Mynach to get a second rate service. He cannot throw the current economic climate into the arguement becuase this new hospital was planned years ago in better times. Perhaps the health commissioners, are in an impossible position, but they put themselves there, by incompetent planning and as a result we have neither the penny or the bun. I dont mind one party Labour control in the valleys, we`ve suffered it for years, what I do object to is incompetent one party Labour control, who by the example of the new hospital, dont know many beans make five.
My last contribution, I promise Richard (Gurner)!
The point (which I didn't make very well as I made it from my mobile phone rather than computer and writing it took ages!) is a more general statement about the realities of health care provision.
To put it in the context of Caerphilly and an A&E service, would people rather have a second rate A&E service in Ystrad, or better services that they have to travel to at either the Heath or Gwent (although I know that the quality of the services at both these sites are a debate in themselves!) We'd all love a first class service within spitting distance of our homes, but this is the reality of the choice on offer. We cannot hope to provide a first rate service in every single community, town, city etc within the current budget constraints. Any politician that suggests otherwise is mistaken at best or politically opportunistic at worst. We need more honesty from our politicians about the realities of healthcare provision.
My own perception – based on personal experience – is that the A&E facility in Ystrad offers substantatively the same limited service that the old Miner's hospital did. Not wanting to start yet another debate, if people are worried about the length of time it would take to get to an A&E, the research shows that it is the ambulance response rate that matters more rather than the time it takes to travel to hospital.
I think it is safe to say that I'll agree to differ with other opinions expressed above!
Richard – on the housing issue, I don't disagree with you, but the figues that I regularly see relating to housing indicate that there is an overall housing shortage even when under occupancy is taken into account. We have to put new homes somewhere and I can think of worse uses for the Miner's site, but note your infrastructure concerns which will need addressing in parallell to the development.
Kate – to stereotype those living in social housing as 'problem families' is unfair, to say the least. I think you'll also find that the decision to close the miners and relocate to Ystrad has more to do with our health commissioning bodies than any political party.
Trefor Bond on May 22nd, 2012 at 9:33 am says…
With all due deference to the view of Rob Rolfe in respect to his opinion on the facilities provided at the Cottage Hospital at Ystrad Mynach, I have to say his view is both distorted and delusional, delusional in his total submission to political sound bites in respect to his generalisation of the spending of limited health service budgets in Wales, and, what is provided for the citizens of Wales from those budgets, and, distorted in his opinion that the minor injuries unit at this facility is called an A&E unit, even the Health Board don`t try to convince us it is.
Rob is of course correct in saying that all communities cannot demand a replication of all health care provisions within very close proximity to each town and village, but, the fact is we have this facility in the Borough, it was provided to replace previous now defunct facilities, and it has the ability, but not the will it appears, to provide a level of care offered at most general hospitals, like the Heath and the Gwent. What is missing is simply the will to do so.
The acceptance that we all had to go to the Heath or the Gwent previously is a silly argument. The catchment area of this new facility is not just the south of the borough, i.e. south of the hospital, it covers all points north too, and the perverse situation exists that if someone suffers a heart attack or a stroke north of the hospital, emergency ambulances have to race past this hospital on its way to the Heath or the Gwent, and, if you happen to be one of these stroke victims taken to the Gwent or the Heath, you will invariably be transferred back to Ystrad Mynach`s ` Stroke unit` for treatment and recovery.
The debate is higher than the ` political` points Rob raises, all politicians will tell us plebs not to highlight negatives, simply focus on the positives, `be led by the nose`, but, the fact is, until those who `pay the piper call the tune`, and, are able to freely and frankly express their opinions to change those negatives into positives by applying pressure on politicians and, in this case, Health Board executives, nothing will change. `Liberalism` does not work, it will never work, and Cleggy and crew are doing as good a job as anyone in demonstrating it`s uselessness in politics at all levels. Good, strong, and reasonable targeted campaigns win the day every time which brings me nicely back to the points of the article by Richard Gurner ( Editor, it was as a result of local political pressure and campaigning that has brought about the retention of the Beeches House at the former Miners site as a community facility, it was as a result of local politicians campaigning for social housing and getting into bed with United Welsh housing Association which brought about the housing development of the former hospital site, and, it was as a result of the Caerphilly community joining forces with Jeff Cuthbert,Assembly Member, and other local politicians, which prevented the total obliteration of the former miners hospital, retaining its original building, in tact, for future generation to use and enjoy.
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If there is one thing you must admire about Jeff Cuthbert is his Chutzpah, this is a Jewish saying best defined by the example of someone, who murders his parents and then claims leniency because he is an orphan. Jeff Cuthbert and the Labour Party were driving forces in the closure of our hospital and the replacement by the treatment centre in Ystrad Mynach. It is the height of audacity for Jeff Cuthbert to be involved with the plan to save the Beeches which he closed in the first place. to then compound the error by using part of the site for social housing is adding insult to injury. There may be a need for housing in Caerphilly, but I find it odd that the variuos housing associations find it difficult to find local families for the houses. In Pontypandy for example they had to go to Liverpool to fill the houses. So not only have we lost a hospital we are having social housing dumped on our doorstep, changing the nature and identity of our comunity, and all thanks to our non local AM.