‘Back our £20m plan or hospice may shut’
ST Ann’s Hospice could be forced to move out of Stockport or ‘close completely’ if plans for a ‘desperately-needed’ new facility are not given the green light.
That was the stark warning from Eamonn O’Neal, chief executive of the Heald Green institution celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
He told a Cheadle area committee meeting the hospice would face ‘disastrous decisions’ if planning permission were to be refused.
Based at St Ann’s Road North, the hospice was built as an extension to the Victorian St Ann’s Hospital, which became part of Cheadle Royal in 1887.
Bosses say the ageing building is no longer fit for purpose and have tabled plans for a new £20m facility on land next to the current site.
Once built, the existing hospice would be demolished for up to 40 new homes – with the new residential development part-funding the project.
The site lies within the Cheadle Conservation area, as does half of the adjoining five-acre plot proposed for the facility.
Stockport council has recommended approval – but officers accept the scheme would ‘cause direct harm to the special character of the conservation area’.
A report notes that the total loss of St Ann’s Hospice is ‘especially to be deplored’.
The plans are also ‘strongly opposed’ by the Victorian Society, which says they are ‘unacceptably harmful to the historic environment’.
The application went before Cheadle area committee last week, where members were asked to recommend planning approval to the planning and highways panel.
Mr O’Neal told councillors St Ann’s had looked after almost 200,000 people and their families since opening in 1971.
“But if we are to look after the next 200,000 people we desperately need a new building,” he added.
“The existing one is old and worn, it was never a purposebuilt hospice, it can’t stand up to the rigours of 21st century care.”
The pandemic had brought the hospice’s limitations ‘into sharp relief’, he said.
And while its ‘amazing staff’ were skilled at adapting to its limitations, he added: “A new kind of specialist nursing is required and our current building is just not up to it.”
In a final plea Mr O’Neal said: “St Ann’s has been caring for the people of Stockport for 50 years. We’ve been employing people from Stockport for 50 years... we’ve been provided unique benefits to the people of Stockport for 50 years. “We are embedded here. “If we are unable to build the new hospice we won’t be here in another 50 years. We will have to close the current building and face disastrous decisions – whether that’s to move out of the borough or close completely, permanently.”
His comments did not fall on deaf ears.
Cllr David Meller said Mr O’Neal had ‘hit the nail on the head’. “It takes something with a strong sense of morality behind it for me to support something without affordable housing,” he said. “But the significance of this application and what’s at stake really does take precedence in my view.”
Heald Green Cllr Carole McCann praised the hospice for the way it had consulted with local residents, noting there were no objections.
“To summarise, I think there are more benefits than disadvantages,” she said.
Heald Green councillor Adrian Nottingham and Cheadle and Gatley ward councillor Iain Roberts agreed with her.
The new hospice would include a 27-bed inpatients unit and a centre offering day therapy and out-patients services, as well as patient and family bereavement support.
The full details are to be dealt with at a later stage.
The committee unanimously recommended the scheme and the council’s planning and highways committee will decide whether to grant planning permission.