Future Fit: Legal challenge will be launched unless changes made over Shropshire A&E plans

Telford & Wrekin Council leader Shaun Davies says the process of judicial review will begin immediately.

He spoke ahead of a meeting of the joint board of Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin Clinical Commissioning Groups at 6.30pm on Monday at Telford International Centre.

Both CCGs are being asked to support the preferred option of moving services from the two-year-old, £28 million Women and Children's Centre and A&E services from the Princess Royal Hospital to Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

Councillor Davies says if that happens, the council will immediately write to both CCGs outlining their concerns and if they are not addressed within a fixed period, the legal process will begin.

He said both groups have a "statutory responsibility" to look into the process properly, as both represent groups that will use PRH as their preferred hospital, with places like Shifnal and Albrighton, which are within miles of the hospital coming under Shropshire CCG.

He said: "The process needs to be addressed properly. There is a special case for Shropshire because it is so huge."

He said he now has a "mandate" to begin the process after it was voted for in two successive full council meetings, the most recent of which was held at Telford College of Arts and Technology on Wednesday.

Though he says the council does not want to take legal action, it feels it has been left with no choice, should the process continue.

He said: "There needs to be a pause – they are clearly looking with blinkered eyes on the process.

"They need to enter consultation with us and avoid the judicial review.

"And if the CCGs can't agree on the preferred option, it may go ahead without, which is madness."

The legal action is likely to cost the council £60,000, which will double if it is unsuccessful. If it wins, it will be able to recoup legal costs.

Councillor Davies has said the pause is necessary, after the council conducted its own analysis of the data used to come to the preferred option and said it was flawed.

This document, along with concerns it has raised over the past few months, will form the basis of its legal argument into Future Fit, which it says is flawed.

He has also reissued his call to local MPs Lucy Allan, for Telford, and Mark Prichard, for The Wrekin, to arrange a meeting with health secretary Jeremy Hunt.

He said: "What we need now is for the health secretary to say this has taken too much time, too much money has been spent, give people the chance to enter into a constructive dialogue."