PLANS for a new, 24-bed inpatient ward at Salisbury Hospital have been approved.

In October last year, Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust submitted an application to Wiltshire Council to build a new ward built on the current Odstock Road hospital site.

It has now been approved and a hospital spokesperson said demolition of existing buildings would begin in March, before building gets underway in May.

“A new inpatient ward is about to be built at Salisbury District Hospital,” they said.

“This ward will help us reduce waiting times for elective surgery. There will be 24 additional beds in this state-of-the-art ward.

“It will be an environmentally sustainable building that our clinical teams have been heavily involved in designing.”

They said access to Sarum Entrance will only be via the Main Entrance between approximately February 7 and April 28.

“Access to all other buildings will remain unchanged throughout the ward construction,” the spokesperson added.

The new, two-storey building will be constructed in place of two older, single-storey wings, as well as some small green spaces on the current hospital site.

The plan comes after the Trust secured government funding for the wing, which must now be completed before March 2024 in a bid to address Covid backlogs in care.

“The site is located within the central part of the existing Salisbury District Hospital site and there is a high degree of visual containment from the existing hospital buildings,” the application said.

“There would be a slight loss in the overall area of external green space as a result of the proposed development, although this would be offset by the replacement of aging and slightly dilapidated buildings with a new, purpose built hospital ward.”

Planning firm Stephenson Halliday, which has submitted the application on behalf of the Trust, said the new wing would not impact on views, except for those already on the site.

“The only notable effects on views would occur for users of the hospital site itself, including those visiting, living and working there, and for recreational users of byway BRIT16 which passes through the hospital site to the east of the proposed development,” the application said.

“There would be no notable effects on landscape and visual receptors or designated landscapes outside of the Salisbury District Hospital,”

it added.