Funding boost for Denbigh hospital rebirth
Sign-off is expected next week to enable the £13m first phase of the historic North Wales Hospital’s redevelopment, which is expected to take 12 years in all.
The NWH project was included in the Vale of Clywd’s £20m allocation in the third round of the Levelling Up Fund, granted by the Conservative government, and then confirmed for support in Labour’s October Budget.
Put forward in 2021 by Ruthin business Jones Bros, the redevelopment project involves a series of demolitions of outbuildings, creating 34 apartments within the historic building structure, and building 300 new homes and 12,000 sq ft of business space around the 22-acre site.
The hospital has stood empty since 1996.
As a project of regional significance, the project comes under the guidance of Ambition North Wales, the body comprising leaders and chief executives of the region’s councils. ANW is pulling together the funding package and has taken the project through a five-stage business case process.
Three phases are mapped out for what is expected to be a £107m project, with the first phase costing £13m.
Growth Fund backing of £7m is earmarked for phase one, along with £3m of private investment, and Denbighshire County Council’s cabinet is now asked to give final sign-off for the LUF allocation to be granted to the developer.
Phase one will set the foundations for the actual development to follow, being made up of a programme of demolitions, site remediation, and the installation of infrastructure including a main site road, drainage, upgrade of utilities, landscaping, and introduction of bio-habitat infrastructure.
As set out in the report to cabinet, “the ambition of the project is to deliver a scheme of physical regeneration improvements to the site of the Former North Wales Hospital and to save a grade two*-listed building of significant importance that has not been occupied since 1996. The proposal represents a huge economic development opportunity to Denbigh and Denbighshire.”
Earlier efforts to bring the site forward, one of them led by the Prince’s Trust in 2014, failed to gain sufficient traction.
Denbighshire County Council’s cabinet is expected to rubber-stamp the process at its meeting on Tuesday 21 January.
Fantastic to see that something is finally happening with this amazing building.
By Richard Roberts
Would be great to see it happen, however could very easily turn in to a massive cash sponge
By Anonymous