HOSPITALS will not receive a penny from developers after Malvern Hills District Council voted to reject their request for developer contributions.

At the Northern Area Planning Committee on August 14, councillors voted unanimously to reject the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust’s request for £7.7 million from developers at four sites, totalling 4,824 new homes around Worcester and Malvern.

The trust put in a request for the money saying the developments “impose an additional demand on existing over-burdened healthcare services” and “failure to make the requested level of healthcare provision will detrimentally affect safety and care quality”.

Councillors raised the question of why the trust had not submitted its request for money sooner, with councillor Douglas Godwin saying: “This is terrible. A multi-million pound, multi-functional agency coming round here with its begging bowl.

“What is appalling is that they have got a phalanx of officers and computer systems worth millions but couldn’t be bothered to put their comments in the plan.”

Between May 31, 2017 and January 9, 2019, the committee considered the applications for building on land south of Worcester in Bath Road, land north of Taylor’s Lane, land north of Oldbury Road and land at Martley Road, Lower Broadheath.

At the time the applications were considered by the Committee no requests had been received from the Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust for financial contributions towards health provision.

The committee was minded to approve the proposals, subject to the applicants agreeing to enter into legal agreements necessary to “deliver essential infrastructure associated with the proposals.”

A spokesman for Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “We are extremely disappointed by this decision and the serious implications it has for our staff who are working so hard to provide safe, high quality patient care.

“We are concerned about the impact that a development of this scale will have, particularly on our urgent and emergency care services, if we have no financial support to mitigate the impact this development will have.

“We are going to take advice on what further options are available to us and until we have that advice, we don’t want to comment further.”