MORE than 150 homes could be in the pipeline for the Milford Hospital site if Waverley planners agree in principle to an outline planning application.
The plans have been submitted by developers Capitec on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health. They arrived on planners' desks just days after it was announced that a decision on the future of Milford Hospital, expected in May, has been delayed again, this time until the next meeting of the West Surrey Health Authority in July.
Waverley has received plans to re-develop the controversial site of almost 40 acres with 125 new homes, the conversion of a block of existing houses into six flats and refurbishment of another 22 existing houses, 153 homes in total.
A plan shows the complete redevelopment of all existing hospital buildings on the site, apart from the present elderly people's day care centre and specialist rehabilitation unit which have been excluded from the layout.
If the plan, which is likely to be considered by Waverley's central area development control sub-committee at the end May, is approved in principle, the applicant would then have to submit a detailed planning application for the proposals.
The current plans for the site follow a previous outline planning application for 150 homes which was submitted last year and later withdrawn.
Among the latest proposals are plans for a mix of three and four-bedroom detached homes, three-bedroom semi-detached houses, and two-bedrooom terrace homes.
Several three-storey blocks of flats, one incorporating ten one and two-bedroom homes and another 36 two and three-bedroom flats, are also included, as are plans for creating 28 additional homes from existing boarded-up buildings to the north of the site.
Some affordable housing operated by a housing association would be the subject of detailed discussions with Waverley if the plans go ahead.
Access to the proposed development would be by existing points on to Tuesley Lane and land retained by the Surrey Hampshire Borders NHS Trust for access to the existing elderly and rehabilitation facilities.
Waverley's principal planner Brian Titmus told The Herald that only the means of access was being considered by planners at this stage, and all other matters would be reserved and discussed at a later date.
Plans for the 153 homes on the brownfield site in the middle of countryside comes two weeks after the government announced that Surrey County Council must find space for 47,200 new homes in the period up to 2016 - well above the 35,000 figure that the council had long argued was acceptable and sustainable.