Pledge on hospital services

2:34am Wednesday 16th April 2008

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Health bosses have been quick to stress that Government housing plans for the former Wharfedale Hospital will have no impact on local health services.

The Government has included the old hospital site, along with land beside Seacroft Hospital in Leeds, on a priority list of locations it will use to try to provide 30,000 new homes across the country.

National regeneration agency English Partnerships has a substantial conversion and new-build scheme in the pipeline for the Otley plot, which lies to the side of the new hospital, on Newall Carr Road.

No planning application has been submitted yet, though, and in the meantime Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust stresses that any redevelopment will not affect patients.

A spokesman said: "Wharfedale Hospital and Seacroft Hospital are both key sites for the Trust and we would like to reassure patients and the public that the residual land in question is not part of any existing NHS facilities and, indeed, does not belong to us. So any future development there will not affect our services.

"We have said on a number of occasions that we aim to maximise the use of both these important hospital facilities."