A man who would "hate to see" St Mary's Hospital "flattened" has called for the building to be listed and turned into a unique tourist attraction for Colchester.

Last October, the former hospital site, off Balkerne Hill, Colchester, was finally sold by Essex Rivers Healthcare Trust after seven years on the market.

The sale brought a welcome £1.39 million cash injection for the Health trust and new owner Land Developments (Colchester) hopes to take advantage of the existing planning permission at the site for a small supermarket, shops, homes and a 200-space car park.

But Ian Richards, of Suffolk Square, Sudbury, does not want to see "part of Colchester's history" levelled to the ground.

"I would like to see the building listed and put to some good use," he said. "We have got enough retail units in the town, many sitting empty in High Street. "There has also been enough houses going up in Colchester over the past few years at the High Woods development - that was a great area of woodland which is now just an urban sprawl."

He felt it could be turned into something unique for Colchester, such as a hospital museum.

"It needs to be something a bit unusual which would bring tourists into Colchester to see it," he said.

The new owner is a wholly-owned subsidiary of property firm Hampton Trust, and a spokesman for the company said: "We are having ongoing meetings with planners at the moment." A spokesman for Colchester Council's planning department said: "A condition that the site is developed in accordance with the plans submitted with the outline planning permission does exist and that shows all the buildings removed." But he said preserving the buildings was an idea the council had also looked into.

By Lisa Cockrell

Reporter's e-mail: lisa_cockrell@thisisessex.co.uk

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