A preferred site has been earmarked for a new hospital in Weymouth.

Land near the ambulance station, off Mercery Road, was identified as the best location – although most of the area is now planned for a shopping and restaurant scheme, expected to start later this year.

Other plots may be available in the area, behind the ambulance station, or adjacent to it, owned by New Look, although neither is currently on the market.

Sites elsewhere in the town were also up for consideration, although it has not been revealed where.

Other options for Weymouth include refurbishing and improving the existing community hospital (pictured below); demolishing most of it and re-building on the same site, or selling the land for development.

Dorset Echo:

With many apartments already in the area it is thought unlikely there would be any major objections to redevelopment on planning grounds.

Although a new hospital is still far from certain, if funding can be found there remains a commitment from Dorset health bosses to improving local health facilities.

However the long-term proposals for Weymouth and other health sites in the county will all depend on winning support from the NHS at national level, attracting massive amounts of Government funding. All options are thought to be at least five years away and without Government cash will not get off the ground.

Figures for Weymouth and Portland improvements are put at £30m, with £25m for Forston, £20m at Shaftesbury and £18m at Sherborne.

All of the options for Weymouth are understood to involve the disposal of the Westhaven Hospital site,  where previous proposed change to reduce the number of beds on the sites were met with local protests in 2017. The recent clinical review says of the site :" good quality estate and facilities but located on the edge of town and therefore less accessible" while the Weymouth Hospital site is said to be well located, but cramped.

A paper, co-authored by the three Dorset hospital trusts, looks at options for hospital sites at Forston near Dorchester, Sherborne and Shaftesbury.

Portland and Bridport’s community hospitals are said to be out of the scope of the current Health Infrastructure Plan.

Much of the current thinking in the strategic document is about creating what are known as community hubs, where a wide-range of services are brought together on one site – a one-stop ‘shop’ for health services.

The other Dorset sites in the current round of planning, Forston, Sherborne and Shaftesbury, involve choosing between a range of options including new build or to re-use the existing sites which may include part demolition and rebuilding.

Lib Dem councillor for Sherborne, Robin Legg, this week suggested that the health planners might like to consider moving from the 150-year old Yeatman Hospital site, close to the centre of town, and start talks with the Digby Estate to see if it could find space for a new hospital in the estate’s plans for hundreds of new homes on sites it owns on the outskirts of the town.

None of the hospital site options has yet to be declared as the preferred choice.

Costing for all of the project have been put at between £350 and £500million.

Dorset councillors were told this week by health bosses that a consultation with stakeholder and the public would be held once it was known what, if any, options were financially viable.

Where would your preferred site be for a new Weymouth hospital, should be money be found?

On the existing site with a refurbished building?

Littlemoor where 500 homes are being planned?

On one of the undeveloped sites at Chickerell?

On unused car park land close to the town’s rail station?

The Granby industrial estate?

Harbourside – where the gas works used to be?

The Westhaven Hospital site?

Off Lanehouse Rock Road?

The former North Quay WPBC offices, although the site may be too small.