MP PETER Luff this week vowed to continue the fight to defend Evesham Community Hospital in 2006 as he warned it would inevitably come under further pressure in the coming year.

Setting out his top ten priorities for the New Year, Mr Luff told members of Evesham Rotary Club on Tuesday that mounting NHS funding difficulties would almost certainly make health chiefs look again at the future of the hospital.

The MP also vowed to fight for fairer funding for Worcestershire, "especially for education and health services."

He added: "New research has demonstrated that we are short-changed by central government in NHS funding too - an area we had always fondly, and wrongly, imagined we were getting what we deserved."

Another of the MP's priorities during the coming year would be fighting for better local transport services - "especially train services to London and Birmingham which fall well below the standard we have a right to expect."

On a regional level, Mr Luff promised to continue to fight the government's "transparent but profoundly damaging plans to move every important decision affecting our county to Birmingham."

He went on: "Local people have been magnificent in their support of the West Mercia police force, but there has been worrying complacency about the abolition of the Hereford and Worcester Ambulance Trust."

He told guests at the meeting: "As chairman of the Trade and Industry select committee, I have a special opportunity to promote British competitiveness.

"As a country we are simply not waking up to the scale of the challenge facing us from globalisation and the emerging economies of the developing world."

There was also, he said, a need to encourage intelligent debate on UK energy policy. "The lights could well go out in the future unless we get it right now."

Mr Luff concluded: "I have one last, eleventh challenge, too, but wearing another hat.

"As president of the Three Counties Agricultural Show in 2006, I want to highlight the needs and priorities of rural communities."