PLANS for the development of a new £150m critical treatment hospital, alongside an £18m cancer centre, are still on Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s radar despite rumours to the contrary.

In a statement this week, the Trust confirmed that it still had “a long-held aim to centralise services for the sickest, which includes the treatment of strokes, heart attacks and major trauma”.

The statement continued: “This continues to be our aim so that these services can be sustained and to enable us to provide event better care.

“Planning permission to build a critical treatment hospital and cancer treatment centre on a site near junction 7 of the M3 (close to North Waltham village) was granted last year.”