And committee chair Cllr Seamus Quilty stressed that the plans were in their ‘infancy’.
“This is just at the start – its a marathon that is going to go on here.” he said. “It’s going to be a long long time before there is any real decision made.”
During the meeting, Labour county councillor Margaret Eames-Petersen questioned the way travel times had been assessed – pointing to the journeys undertaken by patients from the north and east of the county.
But Ms Kinghorn said that it had been “a massive balancing act” and that moving services to the Lister Hospital would have increased travel times from other areas by “extraordinary amounts”.