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Fair Havens plan for new £15m hospice at Belton Hills, Leigh

10:30am Tuesday 19th October 2010 in Health By Jasmin McDermott

Artists’ drawing – how the planned hospice at Leigh would look Artists’ drawing – how the planned hospice at Leigh would look

PLANS to build a new £15million hospice on greenbelt land in Leigh have been revealed.

Fair Havens, which has been running a hospice care centre in Chalkwell Avenue, Westcliff, for the past 27 years, has drawn up plans to build a larger, hospice off Belton Way, Leigh.

London-based architects TP Bennett outlined artists’ impressions of their vision for an eco-friendly and environmentally-sensitive building which would include a village green community area and create therapy gardens and wildlife areas.

The proposal includes the development of various therapy rooms for arts, crafts and music as well as a designated laundry room for nurses and staff members.

The building will have 16 double bedrooms for inpatients, each with views across the estuary as well as pull-out beds for visitors and family members.

The plans are due to be lodged by next spring and, if permission is granted, the building could be open in early 2015.

Vanessa Longley, one of the directors of the charity, said: “This is the preferred site above the others we have considered for our patients.

“The main areas of importance for them from discussions we had was accessibility.

“We have made several improvements to our current site but it has come to the point where we cannot expand or develop anymore.

“The Salvation Army has given us the option of purchasing the land if the plans go ahead and it will be designed to be in keeping with the surroundings.

“We will be ensuring we do not impact on the wildlife in the area and it will be built in such a way that it will not obscure residents’ views as well as using environmentally-friendly materials.

“We need a bigger hospice because we had to turn away 49 people last year and this building will enable us to offer people the care they need, as well as utilise the space to help people with the specific level of care they need.”

Other aspects being considered include having underground parking spaces beneath the raised building.

The charity is considering other potential sites across the borough that are more than two acres, and will be taking on board the views of residents.

Andy Smith, hospice chief executive, said: “The artists’ impression shows how a building could nestle in the site. We do not yet know what the new hospice would look like, so there is an opportunity for people to help shape its design.”

Comments(22)

DannyK86 says...
11:15am Tue 19 Oct 10

what part of Belton Way? Fair Havens is a great institution, but it's really nice having all that green space around there, and it'd be quite important to keep.

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Hobnail says...
12:05pm Tue 19 Oct 10

Leave it alone it's greenbelt for a reason.

Once this has been built it will be easier for property developers to get planning permission to cram as many luxury apartments in as they possibly can, all the beautiful views will disappear.... but the money grabbing barstools that have a vested interest in this don't care.... they probably don't even live in the area!

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anon anon says...
12:20pm Tue 19 Oct 10

im afraid i agree with the above posts, although Fair Havens do a fantastic job and i would not dream of knocking them in any way shape or form, the fact is that green belt land should not be built on....

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radioman says...
1:35pm Tue 19 Oct 10

I can not quite match the picture with Belton Way, except at the extreme West end, where the ground falls away sharply and shows signs of instability. This is not an area in which I would pitch a tent, let alone a large building.

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Nebs says...
1:52pm Tue 19 Oct 10

Who owns the land?

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Chap says...
2:57pm Tue 19 Oct 10

Is this the same Salvation Army that said, about 6 weeks ago, that it had no plans to sell off any of its land, when confronted about the widening of the access road for the 2012 Olympic moutain-biking?

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Ivanna Goodhump says...
3:12pm Tue 19 Oct 10

Surely if bed space is an issue then building a less complex but larger building in a different location would serve their purposes better.

Can't see why being a hospice (despite the good work they do) should justify the loss of yet more greenbelt especially in an area such as the one mentioned.

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Alice_Westcliff says...
4:27pm Tue 19 Oct 10

http://www.havenshos
pices.org.uk/about_u
s/Latest_News/New_Fa
ir_Havens

There's some info about the plans there. My husband and I went to the meeting on saturday at the Stables and it reassured us that they won't be able to build anything else on that land.

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counosboy says...
7:54pm Tue 19 Oct 10

I agree with the comments above - Green belt means green belt - and flowering up the application with lots of eco-mumbojumbo is so transparent!

The best way to be green is to leave the site as it is, and develop a brown-field site instead.

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soufend girl! says...
8:46pm Tue 19 Oct 10

Fairhavens does a good job, but the green belt is there for a reason and it should be preserved. i don't believe that once one building is allowed others won't follow. Is it in Southend or Castle Point?

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imco says...
9:34pm Tue 19 Oct 10

It's Southend. Fantastic institution that FairHavens is, I think this is the wrong location for the new hospice. FairHavens would be much better off in the long term to find a bigger, more stable, more flexible and less controversial, site elsewhere. Whenever I've visited a hospice, either as a visitor or a 'customer' (and when you are the latter they are fantastic), the view was the last thing on my mind. Plus, it's hard to imagine how this project would not be used to develop this land further, whatever the powers that be say now. It wasn't long ago we were being asked to dig deep, which many people did thankfully, to support the hospice through a funding crisis. The massive cost of shoring up Belton Hills would add vastly to the cost of a build here, it's difficult to see how that could be justified, then there's the environmental impact of the loss of our little patch of green belt. I can see it now, with a link road from Hadleigh, that 'happened' to evolve following 2012.

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Mark D says...
12:09am Wed 20 Oct 10

No question, they should keep off Green Belt land.

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Nebs says...
8:39am Wed 20 Oct 10

How about building one on the seafront, on the slipped cliffs just west of the pier?

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perini says...
12:12pm Wed 20 Oct 10

No! No! No! - Hospice or not, it's green belt land - find an alterrnative site or amalgamate with the site in Hadleigh where there is plenty of room. Hope the public aren't going to be asked to fund this!!

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iloveleigh says...
3:34pm Wed 20 Oct 10

Green belt MUST be left alone. It is outrageous to think that because of the admirable work that they do they can circumvent the will of the people: green belt must be retained.

Dare one suppose that anyone involved in the application recognises that once the bridgehead is breached then either the hospice itself will subsequently be relocated (at a huge profit) or that other developers will follow on the coat-tails and seek to build all sorts of other monstrosities (many of which with retrospective planning applications because "inadvertently" they seem to have built higher/wider/deeper than they originally thought)?

Not for one second do I believe they cannot find an alternative site. Try out by that whisper-quiet airport for some cheap land for a start.

I shall not give them another sou while they adopt this anti-social position and will not now be leaving them a legacy in my estate.

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el caballero de la noche says...
5:37pm Wed 20 Oct 10

The Salvation Army are not planning to build an estate this is an offer from one Christian organisation to another to allow people to die in an area pleasing to the eye.

And expect a greater need for a Hospice in the future, with adequate designed facilities.


Little Havens was built in much the same way.

Perhaps consideration should be given to such a kind offer with conditions.

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daveyboy25 says...
6:03pm Wed 20 Oct 10

its green belt so dont ruin the scenery with another eyesore building

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perini says...
10:59pm Wed 20 Oct 10

Should this development ever get the go ahead - which I doubt, then I imagine the funding will dry up. I for one will stop giving and I would encourage everyone else to do likewise. They do a good job in their current location so why try and fix what isnt broken! It stinks of property development - have they just 'taken on' a new mangler of resource or some other grandiose title?

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Alice_Westcliff says...
8:51am Thu 21 Oct 10

Its a shame that people want to stop donating as its the patients that will be affected. I have been to the hospice to visit a close relative and they give amazing care (which is free!) but the building is old and they're struggling for bed space meaning they have to turn people away. If you are concerned about the greenbeelt issue, the echo today says there another meeting on saturday. I went to one last weekend and the charity was very fair in listening to my real concerns. It answered a lot of my own questions.

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dave1954 says...
4:46pm Thu 21 Oct 10

having read the abovecomments,most seem to relate to loss of greenbelt and location.the existing hospice is too small,demand for bed spaces far exceeds those available and is only likely to increase in the coming years.i just hope that all those anti's never require their services,but you never know what the future holds .

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mrangrysos says...
11:44am Fri 22 Oct 10

Why not locate the new Hospice in the same area as the Little Havens Hospice? Looking at the Satellite view on Google Maps, there would appear to be plenty of room in the adjacent land, this would mean that both Hospices could co-exist without being on top of each other. This would also make sense from a logistics point of view.

The area has good access from the A127.

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karen29 says...
8:59pm Sat 23 Oct 10

Vanessa Longley is the daughter of Southend Liberal Democrat Leader Graham Longley.
.
I wonder if the LibDems who always campaign against developments on the green belt and over development in Leigh will be their usual vocal selves or will the remain silent?

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