Demolition for hospital unit with unsafe concrete

A building at Scarborough Hospital where the roof was found to be at risk of collapse is to be demolished.

Services at the hospital's pathology unit were relocated after potentially dangerous reinforced aerated autoclaved concrete (Raac) was discovered in the structure in 2023 and deemed to pose a risk of "potential death or serious injuries".

The building will be replaced by a new three-storey block after North Yorkshire Council approved a planning application for the site.

Council planning officers said the scheme was "a sustainable development, providing enhanced health care facilities within the existing hospital estate".

​The "increasingly unsafe, inefficient and unsustainable" building at the hospital, serving pathology and ophthalmology services, was one of several buildings on the estate affected by Raac, a council report stated.

Under the new proposals, laboratories and staff rooms would be built on the ground floor of the new building, with an ophthalmology department housed on the first floor and equipment rooms on the second.

Council officers said the services could not be moved to York Hospital and the scheme would not lead to an increase in traffic or patients attending Scarborough Hospital.

​​The demolition of a link bridge connecting the now defunct pathology building to the northern wing of Scarborough Hospital, which forms part of the same scheme, was recently approved, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

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