1.15 West Middlesex is being redeveloped in preference to either building a new hospital on a green-field site or expanding the provision at other hospitals to take over the services currently provided at West Middlesex. The Health Authority and LRO maintain that neither of these options is realistic. There is no suitable green-field site in the area and there is insufficient capacity at most of the possible alternative sites to accommodate the necessary expansion or create an optimal layout of services. Additionally there would be resistance to the transfer of services from both patients and staff. Any type of alternative provision would require local residents to travel further, thereby reducing access to services.
1.16 Even if space and the constraints of creating an optimal co-location of services were not major difficulties, LRO estimates the cost of providing services at existing alternative sites would not be substantially lower than redeveloping the West Middlesex site. However this assessment of similar costs does not take into account the receipts from land sales if the West Middlesex site were to be sold.