The decision followed a review of London health services which recommended preserving Bart’s

The decision followed a review of London health services, which recommended preserving Bart’s but warned: “The key question is how much more expensive would it be to run a two-site versus a one-site operation?” The Royal Hospitals Trust, which favoured closing Bart’s, estimated the extra cost at the time at pounds 26m a year.Critics say Mr Dobson has resolved to make Bart’s his memorial, putting at risk the future of the Royal London Hospital at Whitechapel and swallowing resources needed for improvements in GP services and community care.Consultants at the trust are split over the proposals. A meeting called for next Friday is expected to hear demands for the closure of Bart’s and the building of a single, large hospital on the Whitechapel site, which would be cheaper to run. Others believe that the Government is planning to invest heavily in Bart’s and the opportunity should not be missed.. A BRITISH woman cleared of killing a tourist in Dubai is expected back in Britain either today or tomorrow after being formally told that she was free to go home.

Kathleen Morgan, 37, who had been charged with the killing after a jet- ski crash, had been waiting to see if prosecutors were going to appeal against a decision made by a court last week. The judge had found her not guilty of causing death without intent – a crime similar to the British offence of manslaughter – and prosecutors had 15 days to appeal against this ruling.
Last night Mrs Morgan’s solicitor in Dubai, Michel Chalhoub, said he believed his client would return to Britain within 24 hours “She is very happy, very relieved. She just wants to go home and see her children and try and put her life back in order,” he said.Mrs Morgan, an office worker from Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, was charged after an accident in April that resulted in the death of a Russian tourist, Mikhail Malenkov. Mrs Morgan was in Dubai on holiday with her sister, Maria Kendrick, who was also riding on the jetski when they crashed into Mr Malenkov.

Mr Malenkov was killed and Mrs Morgan suffered a broken arm.Although prosecutors claimed Mrs Morgan had flouted international navigation laws, a coroner’s report concluded that Mr Malenkov had strayed from the correct stretch of water after drinking. Had Mrs Morgan been convicted she faced a jail term and a payment of pounds 25,000 compensation to the man’s family.While the decision to acquit Mrs Morgan was made by a judge in open court, sources in Dubai believe the decision not to appeal against the outcome may have been the result of political pressure. Dubai is heavily dependent on tourism and officials had been concerned that the incident was damaging its reputation.. HICKLING BROAD, largest of the Norfolk Broads and one of England’s most popular sailing and boating venues, is being strangled by the explosive growth of a rare aquatic plant. Hundreds of craft became stuck at Hickling last summer in the dense underwater fronds of stonewort, a sort of freshwater seaweed with the consistency of a giant Brillo pad, and boatyard owners and yachtsmen fear that this season will be even worse.
But the problem is setting them at odds with conservationists, who regard Hickling as the environmental jewel of the broads and are resisting a programme of weed cutting, which they fear will hurt the area’s rare bird, plant and insect communities.Bitterns, one of Britain’s rarest breeding birds, and swallowtails, one of its rarest and most beautiful butterflies, are both found at Hickling, with many other uncommon species such as the Norfolk hawker dragonfly.

So the broad is covered by a series of protection designations in European as well as British law.Feelings are running high, with boatyard owners who complain that their livelihoods are at risk backed by yachtsmen, unable to sail, and the Royal Yachting Association. On the other side, the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, which owns much of Hickling Broad and considers it its flagship nature reserve, and English Nature, the Government’s wildlife advisers, insist that conservation is paramount.Caught in the middle is the Broads Authority, the body with national park status that looks after these normally placid waterways, Britain’s largest wetland, which is visited by 5 million people a year, at least 200,000 of whom come for a boating holiday of a week or more.The authority, which is cutting weed at the moment to keep a channel open at Hickling, plans a wider cut to deal with the stonewort’s growth. But this is too much for the conservationists, who say it would breach the European Union’s powerful wildlife law, the 1992 Habitats Directive.This law, which is just beginning to take effect in the UK, concerns the conservation value of the sites it protects – such as Hickling – above all else. It takes no account of boat enthusiasts and their concerns, and it overrides British domestic legislation.At the heart of the problem is intermediate stonewort, Chara intermedia, which usually forms a dense, interlocking mass on the broad’s bed.

It is nationally rare, now found only in the Hickling area, and an important food for the large flocks of wintering duck such as shoveller and gadwall.In 1994 it covered 30 acres of the 320-acre broad, and grew no higher than two feet. But then it began to expand, and last year grew explosively to cover 96 acres and to more than three feet high, in some places breaking the surface. This year it is already a fortnight ahead of where it was in 1998.The change has come about because aquatic plants in general are flourishing in Hickling as agricultural and sewage pollution is reduced. The stonewort’s main rivals, fennel pondweed and water milfoil, have themselves been subject to cutting programmes, thus weakening its competition.Hickling is large but shallow, and last year’s new growth made it virtually impossible for boats and yachts to move outside the main navigation channel.