IF there's one thing that really galls me it's the whirlwind of activity the various political parties create from the day they declare their prospective parliamentary candidates in the race up to a general election.

Suddenly they latch on to, or create a local cause that can't fail to make them popular, and away they ride on what they hope will be their winning band-wagon.

Bury North's initial popular cause was Ramsbottom Cottage Hospital. Activists feared, they said, that following the decision to close Bury's Florence Nightingale Hospital the Cottage Hospital will be next and they want to be among the first to call for its continuance, but why? I ask myself.

Plain and simple, the answer has to be publicity. Politicians make mileage out of emotive issues and the Cottage Hospital, if feelings are stirred sufficiently, in terms of mileage could mean Land's End to John O'Groats, and back.

Actually, I should have said politicians make kilometres out of emotive issues, but it doesn't have the same ring as mileage and anyway when it comes to things European, count me out. I never go to Spain because the country encourages bull-fighting, and with irate farmers all over the place I'm not likely to visit France either.

However, getting down to matters medical I don't think anything can be more certain than the Cottage Hospital eventually closing. So the Labour activists could be right to be concerned - but they're not.

If we're all honest we'd have to admit that Florence Nightingale Hospital has long passed its sell-by date. Access to it isn't good and there isn't really enough space for development.

Fairfield Hospital, on the other hand, is ripe for development and always has been. So it's reasonable to assume that eventually, following the transfer of Florence Nightingale facilities to Fairfield, both the Cottage Hospital and Bury General Hospital will come under the health authority's spotlight.

But by the time all this happens the prospective parliamentary candidate who feared for the hospital's future will have sown his seed, reaped the corn, and been replaced - possibly after two of three general elections, depending on how fickle we are - by a prospective parliamentary candidate of a different political persuasion who will have latched on to yet another local cause.

However, coming back to hospital closures, sentimentality isn't a good enough reason for keeping a hospital. It's been there for years, people say contentedly - but that doesn't mean it should stay for even more years. If your car's clapped out you buy another. When supermarket perishables are past their sell-by date they're taken off the shelves.

Florence Nightingale has served its purpose. Eventually the Cottage Hospital and Bury General will have served their purposes - if they haven't already. Don't be swayed by politicians, and certainly don't let me persuade you one way or the other, just think about what you would prefer if unfortunately you ever have to become a patient. Will it be a small, ancient hospital with limited facilities, or a large, ultra- modern establishment with every conceivable life-saving aid to hand?

ZRecently I pointed out that free parking at the proposed Dumplington shopping complex will eventually cause local authorities to review their car parking policies. I also wondered how Bury had arrived at its £5 charge for the day. I hinted that the figure might have been plucked out of thin air, and so far I can report that nobody in authority has denied it, so we can assume that's what happened!

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.