Delay for new Cromer Hospital project

A project to build a new £12 million hospital for north Norfolk residents will be delayed as a result of English Heritage plans to consider listing parts of the current Cromer and District Hospital.

The long-awaited new hospital project was all set to get underway following a three-month formal public consultation, which ran from November 2006 to February 2007, proposing the building of a new £12 million hospital using the Sagle Bernstein legacy.

A resounding 87 per cent of the 3,290 people who responded to the Cromer consultation stated they were in favour of building a new hospital on the current Mill Road site in Cromer. The tendering process for a contractor started two weeks ago with a view to buiding work starting in late 2007.

English Heritage wrote to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust this week to give notice that they would be considering the listing of parts of the Cromer and District Hospital which was built in 1932. The Trust has been informed that process can take between four and six months.

The tendering process for a new three-storey hospital building will now have to be put on hold until such time as English Heritage and the Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport have reached a decision regarding listing parts of Cromer and District Hospital. The parts of the building of architectural interest are the Dutch gable entrance and the old ward verandah.

Trust chairman David Prior: “We have all waited many years to get this project moving and it is very frustrating to be informed at this late stage of a significant delay. We do understand that English Heritage has an important role to play in our nation's heritage and we look forward to working with them. Nonetheless, this new development is a blow at a point when we had started the long-awaited redevelopment process for a new state-of the-art NHS hospital for local residents.”