PEOPLE across Wantage have launched a campaign to save their community hospital from closure.

A petition set up on Saturday against the closure has more than 1,600 signatures and councillors have put political differences aside to fight for Wantage's health services.

Oxfordshire County Councillor for Wantage and Grove Jenny Hannaby, a Liberal Democrat, said she feared the closure of the hospital this summer, announced last week, could become permanent, and Conservative Mayor of Wantage StJohn Dickson urged residents to tell county health bosses their views.

The indefinite closure of the Garston Lane hospital was announced on Wednesday by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, which manages Oxfordshire's nine community hospitals.

The trust said the site's entire plumbing of "old and corroded" pipes would have to be replaced in order to eradicate an outbreak of Legionella bacteria.

As a result, the trust said it would have to close the hospital from "early summer" and said it would "set aside" the funds for the repair works.

However, the trust also said it would not start the work until it had run a "major" public consultation this autumn to "determine the future provision of bed-based and ambulatory care for older people and adults with multiple long term conditions in Oxfordshire".

In a statement it said: "Given the high cost of the works required the trust is concerned that the future use of the building should be determined before undertaking an expensive building project which may then need to be changed as a result of the consultation."

The trust said all the services currently provided at Wantage Community Hospital – 12 inpatient beds, a midwifery-led unit and a physiotherapy outpatients service – would be "re-provided locally" when the closure came into effect and said "practical assistance with travel arrangements will be offered to patients and staff affected by this relocation".

Mayor StJohn Dickson said: "I suspect the Legionella will give them an excuse to close the hospital down, and if it's going to close we must demand better or equal services in the area.

"We have got to encourage everyone in Wantage to take part in that consultation, that is where we can put pressure on the trust."

Mrs Hannaby, who is also chairwoman of the Wantage Hospital League of Friends, and said she had been fighting to keep the site open for 20 years.

She said: "As the friends chairwoman, I have evidence of how much the hospital is appreciated by patients and families.

"It has had thousands of maintenance works carried out these past two years: a new roof, windows, new flooring... if the hospital closes that is just tax payers money thrown down the drain."

She also warned: "Once the staff have been moved to other hospitals it will be difficult to reopen as staffing is a great issue."

Oxford Health stressed that there is no immediate risk to hospital patients of legionella, but said "Keeping the hospital open while work on this scale takes place would make it very difficult to maintain a safe environment and would have a detrimental impact on patient care".

Sign the petition online tinyurl.com/hqbyn69