Community hospitals listed as potential housing sites

Portland Community Hospital is one of five NHS sites listed as having development potential

Five community hospitals in Dorset are listed as potential sites for nearly 200 new homes, it has emerged.

Dorset Healthcare Trust confirmed it submitted the sites to Dorset Council's land availability assessment in 2019.

The issue has recently been raised by a ward councillor seeking assurances over the future of Portland's hospital.

The hospital trust said it was required to put forward potential housing land for the council's local plan but had no plans to close any of the hospitals.

The sites appear on the council's Strategic Housing Land Availability Assessment (SHLAA), which identifies land that could meet housing needs.

They are:

• Portland Hospital - 51 homes

• Yeatman Hospital, Sherborne - 50 homes

• St Leonards Hospital - 28 homes

• Wareham Hospital - 18 homes

• Weymouth Hospital - 50 homes

Trust estates director Chris Lawrence said the hospitals were submitted as "potential areas that could be used for development in the future, if we were to change the way we provide healthcare".

He said the trust was "constantly reviewing and adapting" the way it used its sites but there were "no plans to dispose of any of the sites mentioned in the assessment".

Sherborne's Yeatman hospital site could accommodate 50 homes

"One possibility we might want to look at is whether there are options on any of our community sites or available land to provide keyworker housing, alongside continuing to run clinical care," he said.

"If any of our plans were to change in the future - for example an opportunity arose to acquire a new building that would work better for providing community care - then we would be open about this and involve the local community in the plans and proposals from an early stage."

Dorset Council said the assessments reflected "a single point in time" and were "subject to changes" with the "aspirations of the landowner/operator".

It described the SHLAA as a "single piece of evidence, amongst many others, to support local plan making".

Portland ward councillor Paul Kimber raised the issue at Thursday's full council meeting, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, where he sought assurances that Portland Community Hospital would remain open.

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