NUFFIELD Hospitals is pressing ahead with plans to build a new private hospital for York on part of the Nestl Rowntree site.

A planning application will be submitted to City of York Council next week to build the hospital on Nestl's former dining block in Haxby Road. Nuffield has also entered negotiations to buy the site from the confectioners.

The company says it is committed to expanding its facilities in the new hospital to provide the "best possible health care for local people."

Meanwhile, Nuffield, York Health Services NHS Trust and Selby and York Primary Care Trust are still exploring the possibility of using the development to increase NHS capacity and tackle waiting lists at York District Hospital. Nuffield has stressed that it will be business as normal at its existing hospital - the Purey Cust, just behind York Minster - until the new hospital is completed in 2004. The Purey Cust, which opened as a nursing home at the start of the First World War with money collected as a tribute to Dean Purey Cust, Dean of York between 1880 and 1916, was taken over in 1984 by Nuffield - Britain's biggest charitable healthcare provider.

Nuffield said today it was still too early to say what would happen to the building in Precentor Court following its closure. But it would seem to have excellent potential for commercial re-development, possibly as a hotel or flats. The siting of the new hospital at Nestl, so close to York District Hospital, would be a major advantage for staff such as doctors, who might need to get quickly from one hospital to the other. It would be a ten-minute walk, avoiding the need to use a car and the risk of getting stuck in traffic.

Updated: 12:02 Monday, October 28, 2002