A £750million state-of-the-art hospital should be built on a huge piece of open space on the edge of Shoebury rather than more than 7,000 homes, it has been claimed.

The land, off Bournes Green Chase, has been earmarked as a key site within Southend Council’s hotly-debated housing plan for more than 20,000 homes.

However, in a heated debate about saving Southend’s green belt on Thursday night, councillors from across the political spectrum agreed it could be impossible to save the site from development.

Rather than building thousands of homes, councillors are calling for the site to be earmarked for a new hospital which would be “fit for a city”.

Ron Woodley, deputy leader at the council, said: “Our current hospital will not be able to cope with the increase in homes and people coming. We need a better and bigger hospital with improved parking and road access. We’ve lost heart and stroke services and almost lost our A&E department.

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“A countryside surrounding would help people recuperate and be a nice area for visitors at the hospital too.

“It could have better and newer equipment and would cost about £750million.

“We would have to keep the current hospital open fully until another is ready for patients.

“Huge numbers of homes could then be built on what would become the old hospital site as it’s such a large area.”

He said at least 1,000 flats could be built at the council’s Civic Centre to help meet the need for housing. As part of the council’s housing plan for next 20 years, the Government is insisting roughly 22,000 homes are built in the borough.

Tony Cox, leader of the Southend Tories, said: “I think it would be fewer than 5,000 homes on the Civic Centre.

“I don’t see a lack of brownfield sites, as we’ve got so many other places to build on.

“I think we should move the council officers to the Victoria Shopping Centre and build there and I think Victoria Plaza has lots of potential too.

“There are some developments like Fossetts Farm or schools or hospitals which would work ok on greenbelt land.

“This is about saving the majority of greenbelt and working with sites we do have. We have a number of sites to use without trashing our greenbelt land.”