AMBITIOUS plans to rebuild Heatherwood Hospital could be at serious risk - as councillors prepare to decide whether or not to give the goahead next week.

Royal Borough planning councillors will be advised by their officers to refuse to allow the £90million redevelopment scheme that would see the existing old fashioned hospital structure flattened and rebuilt nearby.

They meet on Tuesday.

Heatherwood, in Ascot, is the non-acute partner hospital to Wexham Park in Slough, which is now part of the successful Frimley Park hospital trust.

The planned changes are part of a wider scheme to improve services across the trust and were seen as a way of modernising services at Heatherwood and guaranteeing its future.

It has been threatened with closure as recently as 2012.

But in their report to councillors officers warn: “The proposal would result in substantial harm to the Green Belt and there are no ‘very special circumstances’ to outweigh the substantial harm.”

They also warn that important archaeological assets would be built over.

The report is in marked contrast to a recent report by officers that supported plans to rebuild Windsor’s much prized hospice, Thames Hospice, on Green Belt land in Bray.

In that case the report also said that although harm would be caused to the Green Belt the need to safeguard the hospice’s future by allowing it to expand to a larger site outweighed this.

Councillors will make their own decision next week about Heatherwood and do not always follow officers’ recommendations.

If they do refuse the plan, the hospital trust will have the choice of appealing against this to the Government inspector.

The proposed new hospital would have included six operating theatres, new cardiac facilities and 40 inpatient beds.

Houses would also have been built on part of the current site to help finance the scheme.