WINCHESTER’S Army training camp was considered as a site for the new hospital serving north and mid Hampshire.

Sir John Moore Barracks, on Andover Road, was originally on the shortlist for a new state-of-the-art hospital under the Hampshire Together programme but it was deemed unsuitable.

Alex Whitfield, chief executive of Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (HHFT), made the revelation during an Ask the NHS meeting organised by MP Steve Brine.

Ms Whitfield was asked by a resident about the sites that had been shortlisted for the facility.

She said: “When we found out we were on the national programme we commissioned some experts to scour the county to look for sites and they came up with a list of I think nine possible sites was the original long list which did include some within Winchester City Council area, not right within the city centre but on the outskirts.

“We then ranked those using a list of criteria around accessibility, likelihood of planning consent and around a whole load of other things which got it down to five, which still had a site within the Winchester area and we then commissioned some other people to talk to the landowners of those various sites to say are you interested in selling, at what kind of a price and through that process that is how we have ended up with the two we have got remaining which is the junction 7 site and then a rebuild on the Basingstoke hospital site.”

She added: “So unfortunately the three that were in the Winchester area that were in our original list sort of dropped off through that process, either not available for purchase, somebody had an option to buy that lasted a number of years and or were not big enough.

“I know there has been particular interest in the Sir John Moore Barracks site and whether that was an option and that was not a big enough site with the expectations around how tall you could go so we have a smaller site if we could build a massive tower block but if we think all the advice is something relatively lower than you would need a bigger footprint and it didn’t meet the criteria.”

Previously the Winchester Lib Dems called for the site to be used for a hospital to replace the Royal Hampshire County Hospital, currently on Romsey Road.

The current plans for the barracks include a mixed development of housing and commercial.