HUNDREDS of frustrated residents, including Wantage MP Ed Vaizey, have marched through the town this afternoon to demand that their community hospital is reopened.

A huge crowd of townsfolk, including the MP and councillors, assembled in Charlton Heights at 2pm then marched past the hospital and into the town centre waving banners and posters.

Oxford Mail health reporter Chris Ord was on the scene to capture the action and find out more about the story.

The march was in protest to the fact that Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, which owns Wantage Community Hospital, closed the 12 in-patient beds in July 2016 on what it called a 'temporary' basis.

Residents in the town now have to go elsewhere for the same services and fear the in-patient ward will not be reopened.