Royal Derwent Hospital - "Save whole hospital"

My letter to the editor that appeared in The Mercury Newspaper, Monday 18th January.

"Couldn't the Derwent Valley Council get access to federal funding to redevelop the former Royal Derwent Valley oval and surrounding buildings into a viable tourist attraction that would create extra local employment? While it is positive news that the Council are planning to convert the Barracks Building, designed in 1828, it should be remembered that the former Hospital has a social and architectural history that spans two centuries. The former Royal Derwent Hospital may have well have been the oldest running mental institution in Australia, but redeveloping only the oldest sections of the complex for tourism denies more than 200 years of changing attitudes to mental health care and denies the modernist buildings on site their rightful place in creating a complete picture of the sites architectural heritage"