Protestors are to take to the streets of Maryport in a bid to save hospital beds.

Save Our Beds campaigners have agreed to hold a march on the morning of Saturday, June 18 and are encouraging everyone likely to be affected by the ultimate closure of the hospital to take part.

The march will begin at Ewanrigg Community Centre at 9am.

It will go past the hospital and to Netherhall Corner where cars will be standing by full of the letters and petitions that will be gathered between now and then.

The letters will be delivered to the Success Regime at its Rosehill Industrial Estate headquarters in Carlisle on Monday, June 20.


Meetings are being held at Ewanrigg Community Centre every Wednesday to decide on campaign strategies.

Three weeks into the battle, there are still around 70 people attending.

This week was the first week that a town councillor attended the meeting. Councillor Sharon Stamper was welcomed enthusiastically as the campaigners questioned the apparent lack of support from the council.

Town mayor Linda Radcliffe said she supported the group but had a standing engagement on Wednesday evenings that could not be broken.

Councillor Radcliffe and Coun Carni McCarron-Holmes were also the only two councillors present at the Success Regime’s public meeting. It is understood that the Success Regime meeting clashed with a Labour group meeting.

The campaign also agreed on Wednesday to hold meetings in surrounding villages to ensure that everyone is able to participate and be kept informed.

The group is also looking at another protest designed to show the Success Regime the difficulty Maryport people might have in visiting sick relatives out of town.

Sharon Barnes has suggested that a large group, including someone in a wheelchair, attempt to use the bus service to try to get to Cockermouth hospital for both afternoon and evening visiting times.

“We need to see how practical it is or isn’t – as well as looking at the cost,” she said.

The campaign, through Ewanrigg Local Trust, has organised a letter writing campaign. The deadline for these letters is June 29 but people are being asked, if possible, to deliver them to Ewanrigg Community Centre in time for the march on June 18.

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