NHS reveals how much it sold Market Harborough's old cottage hospital site for

The former Market Harborough Cottage Hospital site sold for £1.35 million.

The money is just for the land – the hospital buildings will be demolished, apart from the Grade II listed War Memorial Portico.

Proceeds from the sale of the site will be reinvested in the NHS.

NHS Property Services sold the former Market Harborough District Hospital site, on Coventry Road, to Sterling Rose Care.

As the developers told the Mail on March 1, the site will be developed into a luxury care home.

Clinical services moved out of the hospital in March 2017 after the opening of the nearby £7.5 million St Luke’s Treatment Centre in Market Harborough.

The empty site was declared surplus to NHS requirements by East Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Group, which plans and pays for local healthcare services.

Rosalind Grennell, senior transaction manager for NHS Property Services, said: “We are pleased to be returning vital funds to the NHS while releasing this building/site so that it can be brought back to use.”

NHS Property Services instructed agents Innes England to place the property on the open market in May 2017. After a period of marketing, the agents negotiated with prospective purchasers during the autumn.

Contracts were exchanged in January 2018 and the unconditional sale completed on May 16.

The War Memorial portico in at the main entrance to the building is protected by its Historic England Grade II Listing for its special architectural or historic interest.

Miheer Mehta, co-owner of Sterling Rose Care, said: “We are delighted to have finally completed on the purchase of the Community Hospital in Market Harborough.

“We look forward to supporting the local community in providing a new build luxury care home and respecting the importance and heritage of the listed portico.”

Liberal democrat councillor and health campaigner Phil Knowles said: “It’s good we have finally received confirmation of this sale.

“We’ll be monitoring this situation very closely now, to make sure the war memorial is protected as has been promised.”

Mark Robinson, of the Protect Harborough War Memorial group, said his group is “cautiously supporting” the Sterling Rose planning application.

“But there are still some outstanding matters” he said. “It isn’t over ‘til it’s over.”