Around 5,000 protesters joined a rally against proposed cuts at a Lincolnshire hospital at the weekend, as part of a campaign by the Grantham Journal.

The weekly paper organised the protest at the town’s Wyndham Park as a way of demonstrating the strength of feeling about Grantham Hospital to United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust.

The event kicked off with a welcome address from Journal editor Tim Robinson, and a host of speakers also included Grantham MP Quentin Davies, Mayor of Grantham John Wilks, and Labour peer Lord Giles Radice.

After the rally editor Tim was among a small delegation to meet representatives of the Trust.

The Journal has been running its ‘No More Cuts’ campaign since last August, prompted by threatened cutbacks which could include the downgrading of A&E, the closure of the midwife-led maternity unit and cuts to surgery and children’s services.

Consultation with medical staff is currently taking place, but a public consultation has been put back until February.

Many of those at the rally on Saturday were brandishing placards made with a full-page poster printed in the Journal.

And this week’s front page was dedicated to a letter written by an eight-and-a-half-year-old boy, who told how his whole family had needed the hospital at some point.

Deputy editor Jenefer Muirhead said the fear was that services would be whittled away until Grantham Hospital was little more than a cottage hospital or minor injuries unit, and that people would be forced to travel to neigbouring hospitals some 30 miles away.

She said: “The town is growing and the population is increasing, so it seems so ridiculous to reduce the services at the hospital.”