Minor surgery will be carried out at the hospital

The hospital at Holywell will be funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and is expected to be built by 2005.

The elderly and the sick are currently cared for at two separate sites in the town.

However, according to the North East Wales NHS Trust, the existing Holywell Hospital which dates back to 1909 and Lluesty Hospital, which was built in 1838 as a workhouse, have become too expensive to maintain and heat.

Welsh Health Minister Jane Hutt announced the hospital funding during a visit to the area.

Local campaigner and county councillor Karin Davies said the town desperately needs the new hospital.

Staff have been assured there will be no redundancies

"We do have a lovely community hospital but it's not big enough and we desperately need one hospital on one site," she said.

"�10m is a lot of money but the people of Holywell need it.

"We've been campaigning since the 1970s to have this facility," she added.

The new hospital will be built on Halkyn Road in the town replacing the existing Holywell Hospital and Lluesty Hospital - a site which caters for the elderly.

It will bring together acute, community and primary care services and will have a social services department on site.

No redundancies

It would also have 44 beds, day services and will deal with minor surgery.

However, it will not have a casualty department and patients requiring emergency assistance will still have to travel to Glan Clwyd Hospital 15 miles away.

Staff working at the two hospitals have been assured by the NHS Trust that there will be no redundancies.

They will be offered posts at the new site.

The announcement marks the end of a long campaign by local people.

People living in the town first asked the UK Government to provide a better hospital for Holywell in 1985.

However, the plan failed to get Welsh Office funding in the late 1980s.