Sick Kids Hospital to be sold for redevelopment

Senior News Reporter

Thursday 20 September 2012

THE historic Royal Hospital for Sick Children site in Edinburgh is to be sold for redevelopment and is expected to be on the open market by the end of the year.

all CHANGE: The Royal Hospital for Sick Children, and how the new site will look. Right, Health Secretary Alex Neil at the hospital yesterday.

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BRIAN DONNELLY

The prime site in the Sciennes area near the edge of the Meadows parklands could be expected to sell for upwards of £30 million one property source estimated, as the facility moves to a new site next to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary on the city outskirts.

Health Secretary Alex Neil has confirmed the new facility is to go ahead after The Herald revealed last month a wrangle over the new site for £250m venture had been broken allowing progress to recommence.NHS Lothian has now also said it will put the site up for sale when building work begins on the new hospital. Tenders go out this autumn and work is likely to start early next year.The health board said plans were being formalised for the sale but that it did not involve a land swap deal with the previous partners, such as the deal that led to the latest delay.When the new hospital opens in 2017 it will be five years later than planned following a series of hold-ups. The last deadlock only ended after the final one of 11 financial institutions involved in a land agreement at the Little France site settled terms.Under current Scottish Government policy the capital raised from the sale of NHS assets is returned to the central health budget.The former Edinburgh Royal Infirmary site on Lauriston Place was sold in 2001 for about £35m and transformed into the Quarter Mile luxury flats complex on the opposite side of the Meadows, while the sale of the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital at Fairmilehead generated £11m.The sick children's site could be an attractive proposition to developers with properties in the Sciennes and Grange areas regularly selling for £1m-plus.The site includes a number of buildings and the main B-listed red sandstone structure designed by George Washington Browne, the Glasgow born architect, in 1892 and opened in 1895.Susan Goldsmith, NHS Lothian finance director, said: "We have plans to sell the current Royal Hospital for Sick Children buildings on the open market once construction of the new facility is under way."Mr Neil said: "There have been delays with the new Sick Kids Hospital in the past, due to land and commercial issues with an inherited PFI contract on the proposed site. I am pleased to say there is now a framework in place to resolve the issues that arose in the original contract."Lothians Labour MSP Sarah Boyack said: "Parents across Scotland will be relieved to hear progress is being made on delivering a new Sick Kids in Edinburgh. But no amount of spin can hide the fact it will be delivered five years late and the current facilities were deemed not fit for purpose back in 2003."Staff, patients and parents will be disappointed at having to cope for another four years with an unsuitable building, part of a crumbling NHS estate."

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Sick Kids Hospital to be sold for redevelopment

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