THE site of the former isolation hospital in Huntingdon s Primrose Lane could be turned into up to 50 homes. Planners will be consulting the public at an exhibition in the town tomorrow (Thursday) on the future use of the NHS-owned site, which was include

THE site of the former isolation hospital in Huntingdon's Primrose Lane could be turned into up to 50 homes.

Planners will be consulting the public at an exhibition in the town tomorrow (Thursday) on the future use of the NHS-owned site, which was included in the expanded town centre conservation area late last year.

There are two late 19th century buildings - the South Building and the Primrose Centre - either or both of which could be retained or demolished. Other buildings on the 0.72-hectare site, which date from the mid-20th century, are set to be demolished, almost certainly to make way for housing.

All trees on the site, mostly pollarded limes, are the subject of tree preservation orders, and there are nearly 120 car parking spaces used until recently by staff of Cambridgeshire Primary Care Trust and visitors to their offices.

The isolation hospital was built in the 1890s. by the second half of the 20th century it had become a GP maternity unit and, before being used as NHS offices, was an old people's hospital.

Huntingdonshire District Council planners envisage retaining the existing entrance for pedestrians, with a new vehicular access being put in along the northern boundary with the cemetery. The back of the site could be given over to social housing, with the area between the two old buildings, if retained, turned into gardens and the building converted into homes for the open market.

Any new development would have to protect and enhance the characteristics of the conservation area, they say.

"Any new dwellings must be developed in a contemporary manner, respecting the age in which they were built, just as the older existing buildings respected the age in which they were built," they say in the draft design brief for development of the site.

INFORMATION: The document can be seen on the council's website, www.huntingdonshire.gov.uk, and the public exhibition will be at All Saints' Church, in the centre of Huntingdon, tomorrow (Thursday) between 2pm and 4.30pm.