Story by: Mark Branagan Yorkshire Post 28 May 2007 An East Riding health campaigner has slammed suggestions that Lottery money could be spent repairing the Cutty Sark – and has launched an on line petition calling for the cash to be spent helping local cancer victims instead. Mick Pilling, chairman of Save Bridlington Hospital Campaign Action Group, says he was so incensed by the idea of even more Lottery funding being spent on the vessel that he wanted to show Tony Blair what East Yorkshire thought about it.

Mr Pilling's first online petition on the Downing Street site has attracted more than 100 names demanding better healthcare for East and North Yorkshire.

The second petition specifically calls for Lottery cash to make so-called "wonder drugs" for cancer treatment more available on the NHS rather than expecting sufferers to raise thousands of pounds for private treatment

The petition was set up on Friday and began attracting signatures within hours. Mr Pilling is confident it will match the performance of his other campaigns to protect health services in the East Riding.

He said: "All said and done the Cutty Sark has been there all these years and there must be sufficient money in the kitty to repair it rather than take money out the Lottery.

"The Cutty Sark over the years has received vast amounts of money. So I don't think they should touch the Lottery money.

"By diverting some of the money from the Lottery into health care they could save lots of lives and I think more would play knowing it was helping the health service.

"We are not asking for millions but people should be able to apply for what is the people's money for help saving their lives or improving the day-to-day quality of their existence."

The Save Bridlington Hospital Campaign Action Group has widened its remit to fight potential cuts to health care all over East Yorkshire due to reviews of hospital services by trust bosses and concern about the amount of out-of-hours GP cover.

Facing an uncertain future are the cardiac monitoring unit and maternity unit at Bridlington Hospital, up to 60 hospital beds at Hornsea, Withernsea, Driffield and Beverley, and the Waters Ward and Buckrose Ward psychiatric units at Bridlington.

He continued: "Every time we hear about cancer care in this area they are always fund-raising. People have to raise their own cash to survive and we think that's absolutely deplorable when they could divert some of this Lottery money."

The Heritage Lottery Fund, which awarded £13m to help conserve and improve the 137-year-old tea clipper in 2006, has stated it would have to assess the full scale of the damage before committing more funds.

Added story:

Mick Pilling (writes) The biggest blow to Cancer suffers is the non-response from the so-called Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) who state they cannot afford to fund the wonder-drugs for Cancer Patients who could get a massive releif and help to prolong there lives; the post-code lottery is a sham designed to save money. By diverting National Lottery Funds from (Good Causes) into Cancer-care; I firmly beleive Cancer suffers will get the help they need and dignity.....support this story, it makes sense.   Thank you