From November 16, 2005: The voices of 7,000 protestors fell on deaf ears as Kingston Primary Care Trust (PCT) ignored a petition to stop services being cut at Surbiton Hospital.

The hospital’s chief executive, Paul Holmes, announced that the PCT intended not only to spend £64,000 moving all its frail and elderly in-patients off-site, but also move all out-patient services the following year too.

Mr Holmes had previously acknowledged such a move would effectively finish off the main Surbiton Hospital building, failing to reassure residents that a community hospital would be developed on the Surbiton site.

He said: “We cannot guarantee the future use of the site. We can’t say now for sure what will go on to the site because there is a detailed process of establishing a vision and we want to consult the whole community on this.”

Kingston and Surbiton MP Ed Davey greeted the news with dismay.

He said: “I regret the PCT continued with that plan to close in-patients and felt unable to give a clearer, more long-term commitment as everybody wanted.

“We now have to work even harder and continue to represent the massive community opposition to any idea that Surbiton Hospital could be closed.”

In addition, there was a unanimous decision among the board that intermediate in-patients would be moved to Tolworth Hospital and continuing care patients would go to nursing homes.

Attacked over spending on a new lavish reception area at its PCT headquarters while drastic cuts were being made at the hospital, a PCT spokeswoman said that money came from a different budget.

She said: “We put the money back into society by giving the work to the Garden Gang, a group of people with learning disabilities.”

10 YEARS AGO: November 16, 2005 The first school in the borough to be subject to an Ofsted inspection with just two days notice came out unscathed. Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary School, in Tolworth, achieved the highest grade of one or two in all areas of assessment. The school was particularly praised for its excellent provisions in ICT.

25 YEARS AGO: November 16, 1990 Prince Charles was spotted in New Malden after a top secret filming session with John Cleese. The prince and the comedy legend were in the Fountain Television Studio, in Cocks Crescent, appearing in an advert to convince businesses to go green. Absolute secrecy surrounded the filming for security reasons.

50 YEARS AGO: November 17, 1965 More than 14,000 homes in Kingston and Elmbridge were plunged into darkness after a huge power failure. The failure, which happened at 5.50pm, forced Kingston and Walton swimming pools to come up with a future power cut plan after terrified swimmers were left stranded in the dark.