MALVERN'S long-awaited new hospital may not now be built at Seaford Court.

The site has been earmarked for a hospital since the Regional Health Authority bought it in 1979.

But now Malvern Hills District Council leader Tom Wells is proposing the hospital should be built at the council's former depot site on Pickersleigh Road.

At a meeting of the full council next week, Coun Wells will suggest that South Worcestershire Primary Care Trust is given the option of the whole 4.5 acre depot site to develop both a hospital and new health centre as an alternative to Seaford Court.

"We're not excluding Seaford Court. We're putting two options on the table," he said.

Pat Merrick, chairman of the Malvern Community Hospital League of Friends, has spent years campaigning for a new hospital in Malvern.

She thinks a possible site move should be considered.

Mrs Merrick, a member of the new hospital project board, said: "All I want is to see a hospital and I want to see it equipped to meet the needs of Malvern's growing population."

Alec Stewart-Cleary, chairman of the South Worcestershire Public and Patient Involvement in Health Forum, said he was not sure the PCT would have the money to develop a 4.5-acre site.

Mr Stewart-Cleary said he felt Seaford Court was a better site than the depot because it was "virgin territory".

The district council already has planning permission to move its depot from Pickersleigh Road to Pendragon Close.

It has agreed to give the trust two acres of the Pickersleigh Road site for a new health centre, which the Court Road surgery and Malvern Health Centre will move to, with the remaining two and a half acres of the site earmarked for affordable housing.

But this relies on the trust fully committing itself to developing the Seaford Court site as a hospital.

If the plan to build all the health facilities in Pickersleigh Road goes ahead, the fire damaged, derelict Seaford Court will almost certainly be knocked down.

The site is identified for health care provision in the local plan but the trust could apply for it to be redeveloped for another use.