A NEW hospital being built on the outskirts of Wellington is scheduled to be completed earlier than expected – in July.

Montpelier Estates is building the 75-bed hospital at Chelston, just off the roundabout near the M5.

It is four years since Montpelier won planning permission to build a medium and low-secure treatment rehabilitation hospital for patients with a broad range of mental health problems, ranging from learning disability and acquired brain injury to acute mental illness.

The hospital, which will provide 225 jobs, is already taking on senior staff and will be fully equipped to take in its first patients in July. It will be fully operational later in the year.

The hospital is needed because the South-West has the lowest provision of secure beds in England, with just one bed per 27,000 head of population, compared to the East of England, which has one per 5,000 per head of population.

The hospital is costing £20 million to build and is expected to generate between £4 and £5 million a year for the local economy.

When finished the hospital will become one of Wellington’s biggest employers. Although many of the jobs will be specialists posts, a number of vacancies will be available to unskilled staff who will require ‘training support from local educational establishments’.

Workers will need housing and there are already two big building sites near the hospital – at Cades and Longforth Farm, while two others are planned – at Jurston and Tonedale. 

The new hospital is being built on the

rapidly expanding Westpark 26 which is attractive to business because of its proximity to the M5.