A £7 million scheme to extend Wellesley Hospital on the outskirts of Wellington has been given the go-ahead by planners.

The WWN revealed in July that Montpelier Estates, which built the hospital at Westpark 26, had applied for planning permission to ‘erect a 30-bedroom care and treatment facility on land adjacent to Wellesley Hospital, Chelston’.

The plan is to provide a rehabilitation hospital on 1.2 acres of land behind Budgen’s convenience store and petrol filling station. It would be a 30-bed low-secure mental healthcare facility creating 45 full-time equivalent jobs on top of the 200 jobs at Wellesley Hospital.

It will accommodate people with learning difficulties and mental health issues, providing them with a feeling of ‘being at home’.

n The Wellesley Hospital was built at a cost of £20 million and opened in May of 2017 with an initial staff of 60 and has continued to recruit.

The hospital enables mentally ill patients to return to the South-West from hospitals all over the country and support them towards independence. The building of the hospital provided a further boost to Chelston which has created hundreds of new jobs in recent years, helped by its proximity to the M5.