Frimley Fuel AllotmentsA Timeline of Events

Mike Riding — a Lancashire-based residential property developer operating through Chilton Estates Ltd — is introduced to the FFA trustees to discuss the development potential of the land. The introduction is made by the SHBC Chief Executive and Alan McClafferty, then Leader of Surrey Heath Borough Council. McClafferty will later become Chairman of the FFA charity. The New Hospitals Programme does not yet exist.

Frimley Chilton Ltd — Mike Riding's development vehicle — begins providing "Estate and Green Infrastructure Management" advice to the FFA charity. This runs until April 2025, spanning the entire NDA and option negotiation period. It is never disclosed in FFA's published annual accounts and Chilton is not named alongside FFA's other advisors. The relationship is only revealed publicly when raised at Surrey Heath Full Council in December 2025.

Frimley Health submits a planning application (ref: 23/0007/FFU) to Surrey Heath Borough Council for a four-storey clinical building at Frimley Park Hospital — on the existing site. Approved 17 March 2023. The Trust applies to build on the existing site on the very day its own documents indicate the formal new-site search was beginning, demonstrating the existing site is capable of substantial new clinical development.

Minutes of an FFA trustee meeting record that the trustees are "waiting for a response from Frimley Health." This confirms that active negotiations between FFA and Frimley Health were under way at least four months before those negotiations would be acknowledged publicly.

A meeting takes place between Frimley Health and the FFA trustees. Frimley Health tells the trustees: (1) that the existing Frimley Park Hospital site will likely be sold for housing once the new hospital is built; (2) that any public consultation will be "couched in general terms and not be site specific." HWRA believes this meeting marks the point at which the deal was effectively agreed.

Frimley Health obtains legal advice from Capsticks — a specialist NHS governance law firm — that the proposed hospital redevelopment does not constitute a "substantial variation in service delivery." This matters because the statutory duty to consult the public under the NHS Act 2006 applies specifically to substantial variations in services. The advice has never been published.

Frimley Health holds public consultation events: 8 pop-up stands (working hours only), 3 in-person events (2 at the hospital itself), and 2 online sessions — over six weeks covering Christmas and New Year. Approximately 3,900 responses are received, of which 25% are from Frimley Health staff. The consultation does not mention specific sites. An NDA with the FFA trustees is in place throughout.

Frimley Health presents its case that rebuilding on the current site is not viable. Three reasons: significant disruption; greater expense than an alternative site; and inability to complete by 2030. No planning constraints, flood-risk, or ecological concerns about the existing site are cited. The 2030 deadline has since been extended to 2032/33.

Mike Riding incorporates Chilton Frimley Ltd — a special purpose vehicle for the Frimley project. An outside investor group, Cap Real Estate Limited, is subsequently brought in as co-director, indicating that outside equity investment has been secured in the development proposition.

Chilton Frimley Ltd submits Pine Ridge Golf Course for housing allocation of 900–1,350 homes in Surrey Heath's Local Plan consultation — at the same time it is advising FFA as an undisclosed advisor and negotiating the hospital option with Frimley Health. Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust formally requests Local Plan policy flexibility for alternative uses to be developed on the existing hospital site towards the end of the plan period — before any public announcement of a preferred new hospital site.

The FFA land is revalued at £2,900,000 — the first valuation since 2018, commissioned during active negotiations with Frimley Health. Separately, Mike Riding incorporates Frimley Park Village Ltd — a name strongly suggesting a planned residential development of the vacated Frimley Park Hospital site, once the hospital moves to FFA.

Cllr Trefor Hogg (Chair) and Cllr Bill Withers (Vice-Chair) of the JHOSC write a letter formally concluding that no public consultation is required — on the grounds that there is "no loss of capacity planned, no reduction in the range of services planned and the proposed location means there will be no negative impact on access." The letter is written before transport assessments have been completed and before the preferred site has been publicly announced. It is submitted to the ICB Board as supporting evidence for the decision to bypass statutory consultation. Residents have no knowledge of this letter, or of the no-consultation decision being made, for nearly a year.

The FFA trustees sign audited annual accounts for the year ended 31 December 2024. The accounts contain no reference to Frimley Health, the New Hospitals Programme, or any option agreement — despite the fact that by this date, an NDA with Frimley Health has been in place for over a year and a half, and an option to purchase agreement will be signed within seven months.

Surrey Heath Borough Council Full Council passes two motions. Motion 41/C calls on Frimley Health to honour its own brownfield criterion and publish its site scoring. Motion 42/C (19 votes to 7) directs the scrutiny committee to examine FFA's advisors. Also disclosed: Cllr Morgan Rise declares he was an SHBC-nominated FFA trustee from 2021 to 2023 — covering both the developer introduction and the NDA signing — though this does not appear in Charity Commission records. The seven councillors who vote against Motion 42/C include Shaun Garrett, who will be appointed FFA Chairman seven months later.

An option to purchase agreement for the FFA site is signed between Frimley Health and the FFA trustees. This is confirmed in Frimley Health's own briefing paper to the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee (JHOSC). The agreement is signed before the public engagement exercise has begun.

Frimley Health responds to Freedom of Information requests confirming that no preferred site has yet been formally confirmed — at a point when an option to purchase agreement is already signed.

Frimley Health publicly announces the Frimley Fuel Allotments as its preferred site. The proposed footprint is approximately 55 acres of the 265-acre site. Estimated cost: £1.8–2 billion. On the same day, HWRA's application to list the FFA site as an Asset of Community Value — a status that would have required the land to be offered to the community before any sale — is rejected.

Dr Al Pinkerton raises the FFA issue at Prime Minister's Questions. Outgoing PM Keir Starmer dismisses the campaign with a "golf courses vs healthcare" jibe and attributes a quote to Pinkerton that Pinkerton flatly denies making. Starmer commits on the floor of the Commons that the hospital is "at the front of the queue" and attributes it to "Labour investment."

Shaun Garrett is appointed Chairman of the FFA charity — 20 days after the public announcement that the FFA land is the preferred hospital site. Garrett is the Conservative Group Leader at Surrey Heath Borough Council. He was one of the seven councillors who voted against Motion 42/C in December 2025, which sought scrutiny of FFA's advisors.

Dr Al Pinkerton writes formally to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, raising the campaign's concerns directly with Government and calling for an independent review of the site selection process.

Rodney Bates, an FFA trustee whose charity has entered into an option agreement with Frimley Health over the site, makes 21 public comments on Frimley Health's own Facebook page — the most active commenter in the thread by a significant margin. Rather than acting as an independent trustee, Bates conducts what amounts to sustained public advocacy on behalf of the purchasing body: he describes FFA as "the only viable site (the Trust's position)" and tells opponents they must provide an alternative; states there will be "occasional accidents and sadly even some fatalities" on local roads — a comment subsequently deleted but preserved in evidence; and tells critics the Trust's decisions are "nothing to do with" the charity, despite spending 15 hours publicly defending Frimley Health's position — conduct that sits uncomfortably with his role as a trustee responsible for stewarding the charity's land.

HWRA formally responds to Frimley Health's Site Selection Report with a detailed 7-page critique identifying five serious failings: the public engagement exercise used to shape site selection criteria appears to have taken place after the NDA for the preferred site was already signed; the report "effectively confirms that site selection came down to one criterion — willingness to sell"; other sites were eliminated for reasons — proximity to residential areas, the SPA, and ground condition issues — that apply equally to the FFA site; the Equality Impact Assessment was removed from the criteria entirely, potentially contrary to legal obligations; and FHFT must either publish legal advice confirming this is not a "substantial change of service," or hold a full statutory public consultation under the Gunning Principles.

Dr Al Pinkerton MP writes to Cllr Trefor Hogg, CC'd to all JHOSC committee members, citing the FOI documents and raising five formal questions: (1) what transport evidence existed when Hogg concluded there would be "no negative impact on access"; (2) which stakeholders were consulted before the letter was written; (3) whether infrastructure costs were fully costed and budgeted; (4) when FFA was first identified as the preferred site — given the "preferred location" had already been privately reviewed before Pinkerton was shown "several locations" said to still be under consideration in March 2025; and (5) whether all committee members endorsed the letter or only the Chair and Vice-Chair. Pinkerton describes it as "absolutely extraordinary" that the Chair and Vice-Chair argued for less consultation on "the biggest health infrastructure project in a generation."

Cllr Trefor Hogg responds to Pinkerton's letter the following day, posting the full text publicly on his Facebook page. The letter — dismissive in tone ("I suggest you try to become acquainted with the facts") — does not directly answer any of Pinkerton's five formal questions. Hogg's central claim is that the Frimley Fuel Allotments site "did not become the preferred site until negotiations on an option agreement had been reached with the owners." This claim is contradicted by three separate records, all produced while Hogg was chairing the committee.

May 2024 — Item 22, first JHOSC meeting: At the very first meeting of the committee under Hogg's chairmanship, the Interim Programme Director stated that the programme expected to "secure an option to buy the preferred site towards the end of Summer 2024." The use of "the preferred site" — singular, with a definite article — at the first meeting in May 2024 indicates a preferred site was either already identified or imminent. Hogg chaired that meeting and did not challenge the language.

September 2024 — Item 15/24, JHOSC printed minutes: The minutes record that the site evaluation process had "resulted in the preferred site." This is nine months before the public announcement in June 2026, and over a year before the option agreement was formally notified. Again, "the preferred site" — singular — not "a preferred site" or "shortlisted sites." Hogg chaired that meeting too.

4 July 2025 — Hogg's own letter: In the very letter at the centre of the dispute — the letter Hogg and Vice-Chair Withers sent to the ICB endorsing no public consultation — Hogg himself referred to the "plans and preferred location" having already been "discussed and reviewed" privately with MPs. If the site only became preferred after option negotiations concluded in 2026, what was the "preferred location" Hogg was referring to in his own letter of July 2025?

On transport, Hogg writes that he "look[s] forward to the detailed traffic investigation that will now take place this Autumn" — confirming in his own words that no such investigation was complete when he concluded in July 2025 that the proposals would have "no negative impact on access." The conclusion preceded the evidence.

Hogg closes the letter with a partisan attack on Surrey Heath Liberal Democrats on the housing question — irrelevant to any governance concern raised by Pinkerton.

BBC South East publishes regional coverage of Dr Pinkerton MP's open letter to JHOSC Chair Cllr Trefor Hogg, marking the first significant mainstream media coverage of the no-consultation decision. In response to the BBC, Hogg states: "If there had been an obvious disadvantage at that time to patients, then I might have felt differently about the issue." This admission is significant: it confirms the threshold applied was "obvious disadvantage" — yet the ICB's own Board Paper prepared for the 22 July 2025 resolution recorded that the transport review "will be undertaken" and the infrastructure plan was still "in development." Hogg is on the record admitting the no-consultation conclusion was reached before any evidence existed. The BBC article also refers to the site as "Pine Ridge Golf Club" — the adjacent private golf course — rather than Frimley Fuel Allotments, the charitable land at the centre of the legal and governance concerns.