The Economics of Scale - Trust Annual Report 1970
There is a tendency to believe nowadays that bigger means better and better means more. At least this is how it appears if you look at modern planning methods. This of course is all to do with economics and the rapid growth of population but one senses an uneasy stirring about the sheer size of blocks of flats, schools hopsitals, office blocks, universities, local government buildings and so on. In Winchester we only have to look at the local government offices and think of the plans for the new hospital extending over the next 20 years.
"I flinch when I hear of 1,000 bed hospitals" said the new Social Services Minister Sir Keith Joseph, in one of his early statements to the Commons and he went on to promise a fresh look at the Hospital Building Plan. As this has been phased, there will be plenty of time for considerable changes in the Winchester plan for 600 beds. The only aspect which an amenity society can properly comment upon is the environmental, and there would seem to be no doubt from this point of view that there will be deterioration if the present plans are persisted in. The financial journalist Patrick Hutber has propounded the law well known to preservationists that improvement means deterioration. For instance as the standard of living improves and more people own motor cars, the position of everyone not actually driving a car deteriorates. Even the improved mobility of the citizens soon leads to traffic jams and more accidents.
The improvements of scale too often bring deterioration in the quality of life. Everyone realises that as institutions get larger we have a transient way of life more appropriate to an airport than fit for human beings. It is to be hoped therefore that the Winchester hospital will be renewed in the course of time for the benefit of the local citizens and not become a mega hospital for a very much larger area.