Letter to the Editor: We write in response to the letter from Disillusioned of Mitcheldean as some of the former campaigners from HOLD. 

We made it very clear to all donors that the money raised by HOLD or on behalf of HOLD was for a legal case which was put in the crowd justice account.

After a lot of work from our team, unfortunately two sets of barristers concluded we didn’t have a legal case.

Once the money had been used for the legal case any money that was left had to be put into help another crowd justice fund.

We asked people on our Facebook page which crowd funding they would like to put the money towards. 

Unfortunately there weren’t any relevant local campaigns and after consulting with the public on our Facebook page, it was concluded that the money should go towards “The NHS continuing healthcare scandal“ campaign.  

Many people are unhappy about the decision made by the NHS Trust to close our two hospitals and open one with half the number of beds and less resources- a few of us ploughed many hours of our limited time into this campaign. 

Two district councillors supported our campaign, Cllr’s Jackie Fraser and Chris McFarling. Too few public came out to events we organised, even though we had evidence that a huge number of people supported the idea of stopping the closures.

People were not prepared to put their back into the campaign and we could not carry the immense weight any longer. 

We hope this answers your query and we thank you for your help in the outset.

Former HOLD campaign members