While everyone in Devizes is hoping for a decent new hospital, I was surprised to read in the Gazette (July 21) that a man from Swindon was singing the praises of the NHS treatment centre at Green Lane, where he had a knee operation. What is wrong with the Great Western Hospital? And then the same evening I read in the Star a similar article by a woman from Warminster who came to the centre for a foot operation when there is a hospital there.

It is only right that everyone can choose where to be treated, but it seems ironic that patients can come from towns that have hospitals, to somewhere like Devizes with its limited healthcare facilities.

Those of us living in Devizes would give anything to have a proper hospital and not have the need to travel miles to one of the large hospitals. Maybe the treatment centre should start charging for parking, as they do at the large hospitals.

I also read in the Gazette that a new £5m home for the aged may be built on the Bureau West site. Why could this not have been built on the site of the community hospital, and had a new general hospital on the Bureau West site.

An expanding town like Devizes needs a hospital, and with the local elections coming up, let’s hope the people who put leaflets through our doors saying they will fight for one, do just that.

Carol Burgess, Hodge Close, Devizes.