THE old Heatherwood hospital site in Ascot will soon be handed over to developers for demolition.
Earlier this year, councillors sitting on the Windsor and Ascot development management panel narrowly approved plans to knock the old hospital, which turns 100-years-old this year, down and redevelop the site into 230 homes.
Developer Taylor Wimpey’s plans to transform the old 1920s Heatherwood Hospital into housing have been in the works since 2017 when hybrid planning permission was granted.
The new £100m Heatherwood Hospital just opposite the old site opened on March 28 with state-of-the-art technology and facilities to provide services for Orthopaedics and Plastics, Ophthalmology, Orthodontics and Lithotripsy. It also provides many outpatient services such as cardiology.
At an adult, children, and health overview and scrutiny meeting, councillors were told by Frimley Health officials said the old site will be handed over to Taylor Wimpey “in due course”.
Frimley Health’s chief finance officer Nigel foster said: “That transfer of ownership should be taking place sometime this year and work commencing on the new homes there.”
Mr Foster also didn’t rule out the current hospital expanding and adding more theatres or bed space to the rear of the site in the next few years.
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He said: “Even if we were to say today ‘oh yes, that would be a good idea,’ there will still be questions of where do we get the capital funding to be able to do that? And that will be a number of years to get that fully up and operational.
“So, potentially we could [expand] but we would also be looking at how we could make even better use of our sites both in Frimley and Slough to compliment the demands we are facing.”
The Frimley health bosses outlined plans it has for the new hospital over the next 12 months.
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It plans to move the orthopaedic surgery from Frimley Park Hospital to Heatherwood and increase its ophthalmology capacity that specialises in cataracts to treat about 20 patients each day.
To provide a “better” environment for children and young people, health officials said they are planning to move its paediatric outpatients service to a community site in Brants Bridge, Bracknell, subject to planning permission.
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