Oxford West and Abingdon MP Layla Moran asked the Chancellor for a £120m maternity unit and Oxford station funding. Neither made the Budget. Read her letters.
Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, has called the Chancellor’s Budget a “sugar-rush” after it included neither of the two Oxford projects she had written to ask for: a new maternity unit and the money to finish rebuilding Oxford station.
She wrote two letters to the Chancellor on 26 October, two days before the Budget. One asked for capital funding for a new maternity and neonatal centre in Oxford, which she puts at around £120 million. The other asked for funds “as planned” to complete the Oxford Station project. Her office says neither request was met.
Speaking after the Budget, she said:
“The winter energy payments announced today will help families get through the coming months, but they are a short-term fix.
“This was a sugar-rush Budget, built for tomorrow’s headlines rather than the decades ahead.
“There was nothing on how to properly fund a National Care Service, nothing to fix the broken Plan 2 student loans system, and not a word about closer trade with Europe, the biggest growth opportunity on our doorstep.
“Oxford has a maternity unit that is not fit for purpose and undersized, and an out-of-date station that acts as a major bottleneck for the UK’s rail network. I will keep pushing the Government to fund both projects. They are investments that will serve my constituents for decades to come.”
The maternity unit: “possibly the worst” estate
In her letter on the maternity unit, Ms Moran says Baroness Amos, who chaired the national investigation into NHS maternity and neonatal services in England, described Oxford University Hospitals’ maternity unit as possibly “the worst” estate she had seen. The MP says she visited recently with Jim Mackey, chief executive of NHS England, “and it was clear that a new maternity unit is the only solution.”
The letter sets out the case in four points:
- the building was designed in 1972 for 5,000 births a year, and now supports 40% more than that;
- care is more complex, with 40% of births delivered by c-section, putting more demand on theatres, recovery and high dependency care;
- modern units have more single rooms, en-suite facilities, space for families and closer links between maternity, neonatal and theatre services, and “Oxford doesn’t have that”;
- money is still needed to keep the Women’s Centre safe and running, “but however much investment is made, the fundamental limitations remain.”
She says the £41 million promised nationally in response to the review “will only cover urgent safety risks such as ventilation”. Early estimates for a new purpose-built centre in Oxford are around £120 million, which she says “cannot be met through local NHS capital budgets alone and will require national support.”
The station: “a critical pinch point”
The station letter asks the Chancellor to release funding “on time, as promised, for the next phases of the Oxford station masterplan”. It cites Oxfordshire County Council’s expectation that passenger numbers at Oxford will double by 2050, which the MP says will need a new station with an additional platform and entrance, and the track to go with them.
She ties it to the Botley Road closure, which she says lasted three and a half years instead of the promised one, leaving residents inconvenienced “on a massive scale” and local businesses under “massive strain due to a drop in trade”. “After all the disruption they have faced, my constituents deserve a station that works for them,” she writes.
The letter argues that without a bigger station, the benefits of East West Rail, the reopening of the Cowley Branch line and wider rail growth in Oxfordshire will not arrive. Oxford has extra track, she writes, but “this track is no use to my constituents without an additional platform and a completed western entrance”.
What it means for you
Nothing changes yet for anyone having a baby in Oxford or catching a train from the station: both projects remain unfunded on the MP’s account, and she says she will keep pressing the government on them. If you live in Oxford West and Abingdon and want to raise either issue with her, her office is at Unit C5, Grange Court, Abingdon Science Park, Barton Lane, Abingdon, OX14 3NB, telephone 020 7219 3905. For timetables while the station work continues, see our Oxford to London train times.
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