Plans to build on land at Knights Park were rejected by councillors

Two different sites have been put forward as possibilities for a new hospital.

One option is that it is built next to the existing 19th Century Pembury Hospital and the other is a site at privately owned Knights Park.

A judicial review was called for by the company behind the Knights Park option, Kilmartin Properties, after borough councillors rejected the plans.

Members did not want fields built on at the site but Kilmartin said its plans had not been fairly considered.

Fair chance

But now the chairman of the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, James Lee, said he would be interested in the Knights Park option.

He said: "The planning enquiry took place because Tunbridge Wells council recommended planning permission should not be given at Knights Park.

"We think that there is now a chance - not a very high chance - but there is a fair chance the planning inspectors may well over rule the council and that planning permission will be given there."

Mr Lee said although the planning inspector had not given its ruling yet, the trust was beginning to treat the Knights Park option very seriously and had begun to develop a business case for building a hospital at the site.

Tunbridge Wells is currently served by the Kent and Sussex Hospital and a second hospital on the outskirts of the town in Pembury.

A decision is expected from the government in the autumn, bringing a 40-year wait to an end.

A new hospital for Tunbridge Wells was first widely talked about in the 1960s and plans were firmly in place to build one in 1997 before a review of health services in Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone saw the scheme shelved.