A PETITION with more than 16,000 signatures calling for Haslar Hospital to be saved is to be presented to Parliament.
Gosport MP Peter Viggers will stand up in the Commons to call for Haslar to be retained as an overspill hospital as well as for the treatment of service personnel.
'I'm going to put this forward as a Parliamentary petition, so I can stand up and t
ell everyone in the Commons just how many people have signed this document,' said Mr Viggers, who says he will be able to present the petition later this week.
'You never know with long-running campaigns like this when things may turn around. I haven't been campaigning for nine years to lose.'
The petition is to be presented after the Save Haslar Task Force sent 40,000 copies of a document called Finding A Way Forward around Gosport and Fareham, asking residents to sign up to the cause.
A total of 16,124 people have added their names to 6,756 copies of the document.
The news comes as support builds for a protest march in opposition to the closure, set to take place on June 29. Organiser Christopher Hill is expecting up to 11,000 people to take part in the march from Gosport Town Hall.
Pat Forsyth, Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust spokeswoman, said: 'We are grateful that currently we can use facilities and accommodation at Haslar while our new hospital is being built.
'But when the redevelopment of Queen Alexandra Hospital is completed in 2009, these services will return there.'
No one from the Ministry of Defence was available for comment.
The full article contains 281 words and appears in NS-City newspaper.
