THE former Dartmouth and Kingswear Community Hospital is going up for sale on the open market next Monday, October 16. Dartmouth Town Cllr Ged Yardy, who’s been leading a community bid to buy the site, read out the announcement at this month’s full town council meeting.

In an email to Cllr Yardy the hospital site owners, Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, said: “While the community bid to buy and redevelop may still be viable, it’s been affected by significant delays in raising the requisite finance, which has not been achieved within the agreed timelines.”

The email stated the site needs to be sold to help fund the town’s new £5.4million health and wellbeing centre, A timeline was laid out by Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust 18 months ago, during which a working group, headed up by Cllr Yardy and members of Dartmouth Town Council, was working with an undisclosed developer to secure the site for the community. Residents were surveyed last year on what they wanted to replace the old hospital building, with an overwhelming preference for affordable housing. There’s a covenant which ensures part of the site must be held for community use. The Trust said: “Our board of directors has given clear direction that an element of any sale or re-development must deliver social value to the Dartmouth community as well as being commercially viable. The open market sale goes live on 16 October and we are interested to receive bids that achieve a level of social value”.

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