Residents' concerns over new hospital site

Frimley Park is one of the hospitals worst affected by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete

The NHS is being urged to consider local concerns when it decides on a replacement site for Frimley Park Hospital.

The current site was built in the 1970s using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), which is less durable than traditional concrete.

An NHS spokesperson said it had identified “priority sites” for a new location for the hospital.

Surrey county councillor Trevor Hogg said he hoped the NHS would focus on local worries about "parking and access".

Mr Hogg, chairman of the adult and health select committee at Surrey County Council, told BBC Radio Surrey: “My concerns are that [with a] standard design, you can make repeated errors across all the hospitals that you are building and it may not suit the area it serves.

“That happened at Frimley 50 years ago, because only two years after it was opened the press were reporting that Frimley Park was half the size that it needed to be."

'More convenient'

The Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust said it would not reveal its shortlist of potential sites due to commercial sensitivities.

Nigel Foster, senior responsible officer for the new hospital programme, said: “We recently held a period of initial engagement to find out what is most important to our staff, patients and communities about the new hospital, and we have now identified a number of priority sites.

“We are in the process of completing detailed analysis of these sites, including taking into consideration the feedback from our recent public engagement, as we enter into the necessary commercial elements of land acquisition that leads to a final purchase.”

Frimley Park Hospital patient Colin Montague, 80, told BBC Radio Surrey he would like to have the new building on the current site.

“I think it’s more convenient for everyone to leave it where it is,” he said.

“There is a huge chunk of army land there which could very easily be appropriated [and] extend sideways which would cause less inconvenience than knocking this one down and building a new one.”