17/06/2026
This is a very useful - and balanced - overview from Paul as we would expect. It’s long, but worth the time, particularly in pointing out where the information gaps do exist.
📢 BIG UPDATE: Preferred Site for New Frimley Park Hospital Announced & 13-Week Public Consultation Launched 📢
We have reached a major milestone in the £1.5 to £2 billion rebuild of our hospital. Following months of speculation and private negotiations, Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust has officially announced its preferred location for the brand-new hospital.
📍 The Proposed Site: The Trust has identified a 55-acre section (roughly one-fifth) of the Pine Ridge Golf Club land, which is currently owned by the local charity Frimley Fuel Allotments.
As a local resident myself, I know how much this area and our green spaces mean to all of us. This announcement will undoubtedly spark a lot of debate. To help us navigate this as a community, let’s look objectively at both the clinical case for the site and the challenges we need to scrutinise.
💬 What the Hospital Chief Executive says:
Lance McCarthy, Chief Executive of Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, shared this update to his Linkedin profile:
"I'm delighted to be able to announce our preferred site for the new Frimley Park Hospital. After a comprehensive site selection process reviewing 18 sites within a 5 mile radius, our preferred site is the north west corner of Pine Ridge Golf Club.
This is the only technically viable site for the new hospital that we desperately need for the populations of Surrey Heath, Farnham, north east Hampshire, Bracknell Forest and east Berkshire. We know there are potential challenges with this site and we can now undertake more detailed traffic and transport surveys and environmental surveys to determine potential mitigations, before we submit a formal planning application.
We are also today launching a 13 week engagement programme and would encourage as many of you as possible to read the documentation, complete the questionnaire and attend some of the events. Your feedback will be built in to our plans.
Today marks a very important day and step towards us providing a new hospital to enable high quality, modern, effective care for our patients for years to come."
⚖️ Finding the Balance: The Facts vs. The Concerns
As a community, we have to look at these proposals from all sides if we want to engage meaningfully and effectively:
🟢 The Urgent Need
Our current hospital is nearly 60 years old and built largely with crumbling RAAC (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) planks. It is a simple safety reality: we must have a new hospital. Under the current plans, emergency, inpatient, and maternity care will move to the new site, while most outpatient, diagnostic, and community appointments will stay at existing site at Portsmouth Road to keep travel disruption to a minimum.
🔴 The Local Friction & The Transparency Deficit
The proposed site is on protected green space and woodland, and a petition opposing the use of the Allotments has already gained over 11,000 signatures.
But here is where we must demand answers: the Trust claims they evaluated 18 alternative sites within a 5-mile radius before choosing the Pine Ridge/Frimley Fuel Allotments. While they have actively refused to release full technical appraisals under the Freedom of Information Act (citing commercial confidentiality under Section 43(2)), they have placed the names of 15 of these evaluated sites into the public domain, while keeping the remaining 3 completely confidential due to landowner objections.
🔒 What the Trust says about the 3 Confidential NDA Sites
A number of other sites were assessed but cannot be named publicly, as their owners entered the process under a non-disclosure agreement. While the Trust is not able to disclose their locations, it is able to set out why each was found not to be a viable option for a new hospital:
Site One had the potential to deliver a strong design solution but was located within the designated Green Belt, meaning any development would have required a ‘very special circumstances’ planning case. Of the shortlisted sites it lay furthest from the existing Frimley Park Hospital, and analysis showed it would have had the greatest impact on how patients, particularly the highest users of acute services, would access care. The landowner was also only willing to sell a substantially larger parcel than the hospital required, raising significant value-for-money considerations, and they ultimately chose to withdraw the site from the process.
Site Two had a developable area below that needed for a new hospital and was further constrained by flood-risk areas and the need for significant utility diversions. The land was held under fragmented ownership, with parts of the site outside the seller's control and a number of existing tenancies with several years left to run. As a result, the site could not be assembled and delivered within the required timescales.
Site Three scored well against several technical measures but was a comparatively confined site held across multiple ownerships and a large number of long-term leases, making land assembly highly complex. External operational safeguarding requirements also imposed height and development restrictions which, combined with the limited developable area, meant a hospital design compliant with the programme's standards could not be accommodated.
In the interest of openness and public trust, we deserve to see the evidence. We need to see the full technical assessments and scoring matrices for these alternative sites, along with clear, objective reasons why brownfield, commercial, or Ministry of Defence-owned land (which already belongs to the public!) was ruled out in favour of protected woodland. Our MP and our local councillors should be pushing hard for the Trust to lift this veil of secrecy and that is exactly what I intend to do and I hope my local political colleagues of all colours will work together to try and bring this about. I do not see this as a partisan issue and I encourage local residents to call it out if they see it becoming that.
📦 The MoD Land & Cadet Training Centre Rumours
There has also been intense discussion on social media with residents asking why the cadet training centre on Ministry of Defence (MoD) land next to the existing hospital site has not been considered as an option. To ensure we are dealing with facts rather than speculation, here is exactly what the Trust has stated regarding this piece of land:
"The option of rebuilding on or next to the existing Frimley Park Hospital site relied on the use of neighbouring Ministry of Defence land for construction and logistical access, over a period of around seven years.
This land includes a Grade II listed building and a registered park and garden, both of which are designated heritage assets.
Development in this area would be likely to have a significant impact on these heritage assets, both during construction and in the long term.
While detailed heritage impact assessment work was not progressed, early discussions and planning considerations indicated that this approach would be unlikely to be supported by the local planning authority, given the scale of impact.
The Ministry of Defence also confirmed that it had no sites available."
🔍 The Strategic Angle: Why This 13-Week Window Matters
If we want to successfully challenge or reshape this proposal, protesting blindly won't work. We have to take the time to understand the process. Here is the reality of how this planning structure actually operates:
🏛️The Council's Role
The formal planning application won't be submitted until autumn 2027. By then, Surrey Heath Borough Council will no longer exist. The decision will rest with the newly formed West Surrey Unitary Council, whose representatives currently sit on the transitional "Shadow Authority."
👨🏼💼 The Secretary of State's Ultimate Power
Here is the crucial point: even if our local West Surrey councillors listen to residents and all unanimously vote this planning application down, the Secretary of State has the ultimate power of sign-off. Any local planning rejection can be called in or overturned, because this is an infrastructure project of regional and national significance.
⚠️ The Danger of a Purely Emotional "No" Campaign
Because the government holds the ultimate power of sign-off, a campaign focused only on flat opposition risks backfiring. If residents fixate entirely on saying "no" and the Secretary of State overrides us anyway, we could lose our leverage. We risk missing critical opportunities to secure vital local infrastructure upgrades, highway improvements, and environmental mitigations that our community will desperately need if this goes ahead. We have to be smart, technical, and forward-thinking.
💼 My Personal Commitment & Putting My Experience to Work
As one of your newly elected West Surrey Shadow Councillors, I want to address my stance directly.
I am one of the very few (and potentially the only) councillors on the new West Surrey Authority who has recent, direct, hands-on planning and infrastructure experience with a major development of this scale, the Mindenhurst development at Deepcut.
I know first-hand how developers and public bodies operate. I know how to spot missing infrastructure elements, how to negotiate robust mitigations, and how to hold massive projects to account so they actually deliver for local residents.
I want to make one thing absolutely clear, my objectivity is not support for this project. My objectivity is a strategy. If I approach this with blind opposition, I cannot use my Mindenhurst experience to pick apart their technical papers, spot vulnerabilities in their plans, and fight to get the absolute best infrastructure outcome. It would be a disservice to our community if I sat on my hands and let that experience go to waste.
I am completely committed to helping our community navigate this, challenge the Trust, and secure the best possible outcome under these highly complex circumstances. I believe that is one of the main reasons why the community elected me to the West Surrey Council last month.
👇 What You Need To Do Now
📖 Read the document carefully: The Trust has launched its engagement document, "Transforming health and care for our communities". (Link in the comments)
✍️ Complete the questionnaire: Focus your feedback on concrete, technical arguments: lack of site-selection transparency, traffic congestion on already overstretched roads, and the destruction of protected woodland. (Link in the comments)
👥 Lobby our representatives: Write to our MP, Al Pinkerton, and your West Surrey Shadow Councillors. Urge them to demand that the NHS Trust publishes the full technical assessments for all 18 alternative sites. (I have posted a link in the comments with the directory of all our new shadow councillors!)
🗓️ Attend the community engagement events: Make your face seen and your technical questions heard.
Let’s keep our community campaign evidence-led, constructive, and absolutely relentless in demanding transparency.
What are your thoughts on the Trust keeping the other 18 sites secret? Let me know in the comments below.
To be kept up to date on the latest news about this and other important local matters, sign up to my email updates, link to sign up page in the comments.
🚩 Please Note: The image used for this post is an AI generated illustration and is not indicative of any element or aspect of the proposals.
