THE application process for plans to demolish and rebuild Heatherwood Hospital has concluded with full permission given. 

The plans will see the current hospital site knocked down and replaced with 250 new dwellings, while a new hospital will be built on Green Belt land behind the current site.

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead council approved the proposals at a planning meeting on December 22, despite Ascot Parish Council recommending objections.

According to the Frimley Heath Medical Trust, the proposed works will cost £90m, with work hoped to be completed by 2020.

The new hospital site will come with associated access, meaning new roads will have to be created down the side of the site to allow for ambulances to get past the homes and into the medical centre.

The hospital, just across the road from Ascot racecourse, is situated in front of woodland space, which will be converted into a Suitable Alternative Natural Greenspace (SANG).

The application was for the full planning permission for the development of a new elective care hospital and associated admin hub, with associated parking, vehicle access, highway works, plant and landscaping.

The application also includes the change of use for the existing building to provide GP practice, data centre and staff restaurant.

This approval means that the green belt land behind Heatherwood Hospital will be used for the new hospital site, with the forefront being converted into the housing.

The original application to transform the hospital was submitted in 2016, and at the time, the Frimley Heath NHS Foundation Trust hoped to have started work in Autumn 2017.