Coventry City Council today welcomed the Health Authority’s move to delay the decision on the new super hospital.

The Authority was originally due to decide between the Walsgrave and city centre sites on 16 March but may now wait until next month. The City Council favours building on the site of the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital but Walsgrave Hospitals Trust which runs the city’s hospitals has gone for the Walsgrave option.

John McGuigan, head of City Development Directorate, said the Authority had made a wise decision:

"The Authority has pulled together a list of around 20 key issues it wants to see resolved before it can make a decision. They range from detailed planning issues, to flood plains to decanting of the sites.

"We are comfortable as a council that these need to be resolved because if we don’t come to the right decision it could damage the ability to deliver through the PFI scheme.

"It is not going to be that much longer and the key message from NHS management nationally is that while we were being told locally we must make a decision by the 16 March, that is not the situation.

"The vital thing is that we make the right decision, not a quick but wrong one."

David Loughton, chief executive of the Walsgrave Hospitals Trust, did not want to talk about the delay. He said:

"I shall follow the advice given by the editor of the Coventry Evening Telegraph in his editorial today and make no comment at this stage.

"That said, we would welcome a quick decision."