Hospital demolition just days away

Walsall's Goscote Hospital will be demolished within days with work on a multi-million new hospice soon to start, it was revealed today.

Diggers will be moving onto the land in Goscote Lane imminently after several months delay.

Demolition of the hospital, which closed in 2006, was expected in March but Walsall Teaching Primary Care Trust (tPCT) had to come up with revised business plans for the Strategic Health Authority to scrutinise.

Elisabeth Buggins CBE, chairman of West Midlands Strategic Health Authority, confirmed the demolition was finally set to go ahead.

Walsall MP David Winnick, who has been keeping a close eye on the developments, said he had been told that building work will start in spring 2009 with the new hospice opening in summer 2010.

Buildings on the land, in Goscote Lane, need to be demolished to make way for the borough's first hospice for adults and a unit for dementia patients.

Campaigners have fought for more than two decades to have a hospice for seriously ill adults built within the borough as patients have to travel out of the area.

Mr Winnick said: "This will be the culmination of years of campaigning for a hospice in the borough.

"I congratulate all those who have been involved."