A newspaper’s campaign to secure a badly-needed new hospital received mixed news during a ministerial visit.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn was impressed with the work carried out by the Sentinel in its bid to secure the facilities for Staffordshire.

But he revealed that the number of applications for new hospitals around the country was higher than expected.

He told a delegation of North Staffordshire MPs that competition to be picked as one of 18 new hospitals had stiffened because the number of applications had risen from 24 to 30.

The Sentinel believes that North Staffordshire should be an automatic choice for a new hospital and ran a series of features highlighting the need for one.

It also organised a petition which was signed by nearly 20,000 readers, and compiled a dossier which was handed to the minister.

Mr Milburn said: “This is an impressive show of support from your community. It is excellent to see how the local newspaper, MPs and the entire community are working together.

“No other area in the UK has shown me such a strong indication of the need for such investment.”

Mr Milburn is due to make a decision in the spring.

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