Shotley Bridge Hospital gets green light
Last updated 1st May 2025
The long-awaited construction of a new County Durham hospital will begin within the next five years, the government has announced.
Regional health officials have belatedly received confirmation that the proposed Shotley Bridge Hospital will be built after years of concerns.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting announced in Parliament on Monday that the new Consett facility is within wave one of the revised New Hospital Programme, with construction starting between 2025-2030.
A 16-bed in-patient rehabilitation ward and urgent treatment centre is proposed for Consett, which was scheduled to replace the current facility in Shotley Bridge.
The project received planning permission in 2023 but has been plagued by delays and inflated costs. Estimated costs for the development have risen to between £50-60 million. Despite the uncertainty, local authorities remained on board with the scheme and its importance in the Consett community.
Mr Streeting vowed to “put the programme on a firm footing with sustainable funding so all the projects can be delivered”.
He also told the Commons the Government would “give patients an honest, realistic, deliverable timetable that they can believe in”.
The pledge to build 40 new hospitals launched by Boris Johnson’s Conservative government in 2019 was last week branded unachievable by advisers. The warning from the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) noted an array of problems with the scheme including how much it will cost to make the promised new facilities a reality.
Liz Twist, Labour MP for Blaydon and Consett, asked Mr Streeting whether residents can be confident of an “honest, realistic and deliverable timetable that they can believe in?”
The Health Secretary replied: “I know residents will particularly welcome the investment in Shotley Bridge Community Hospital, starting construction in 2026-2027. We will continue to work together to ensure her constituents start to experience an improving nHS>
The Conservatives said Wes Streeting’s announcement was another broken promise from last year’s general election campaign.
Shadow health secretary Edward Argar said Labour had “cynically betrayed” voters, and they joined pensioners, farmers and businesses as groups who had been let down by the Government.