Major plans to replace University Hospital appear to have stalled

PLANS to replace Cardiff's dilapidated University Hospital of Wales (UHW) appear to hang in the balance as neither the health board in charge nor the Welsh Government can explain what progress has been made.

- RUTH MOSALSKI

In 2021, Cardiff and Vale University Health Board (UHB) announced that it wanted to start building a replacement for Wales' largest hospital.

At that time, it was said work could start this year and be finished three years later but no details of whether it would be built at the existing site or at another location were given.

At that stage, a £107m price tag was put on the plans to replace UHW, which was built between 1962 and 1971. The health board's then-chief executive of strategic planning, Abigail Harris, said: "The time is right to look at the facilities we need for the future."

It was said then that Cardiff and Vale UHB, which runs UHW, had asked the Welsh Government for funding to draw up detailed plans to replace the hospital with a new one.

University Hospital Llandough was also to be refurbished and extended.