People in Wallingford are being urged to rally round the town hospital and those under threat of closure elsewhere by signing the biggest protest petition the town has ever seen.

Town council member Lynda Atkins, who is leading the protest, is asking for volunteers to help make sure Wallingford's passion for local hospitals is seen by everyone. She and other councillors will be in Market Place tomorrow and Saturday between 9.30am and 12.30pm - and the following Friday and Saturday at the same time. If they can get enough volunteers to help with the petition it could be signed in other places in the town as well.

They hope it will not only be Wallingford's biggest petition, but combined with those of Didcot, Abingdon, Wantage and Henley will be the biggest pro-hospital joint effort southern Oxfordshire has seen.

Ms Atkins, when she was mayor of Wallingford, led the campaign to get the mayors of the other towns to agree to a combined protest petition.

She said: "We want none of this divide and rule strategy which the primary care trusts seem to use - we want to stand together to keep all our hospitals functioning with the invaluable services they provide for local people.

"We will not talk up one hospital at the expense of another - we want them all to stay open."