Talk of moving Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital to the nearby Ministry site has been played down.
A top city councillor mooted the idea last week of building a new home for the Freeman once the huge HMRC offices at Benton Park View are vacated in the coming years, with thousands of civil servants being moved to a £155m development in Newcastle city centre.
Alex Hay, Newcastle City Council’s cabinet member responsible for jobs and economic development, told colleagues that the hospital “needs to be modernised” and that he had spoken to the Department of Health about the possible relocation. But the Labour councillor has now backtracked on those comments.
