Plan for 200 homes at hospital was 11 years in making

Delay caused by site's use as a car park

- Jonathan Sutton

PLANS to build 200 houses on the site of the former North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary have been given the go-ahead.

The outline planning application includes a children's play area, open woodland space, and the retention of heritage buildings.

Permission to build on the site - owned by University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust - was initially granted in 2014.

But it expired due to the site being used as a car park.

Now the site is once again vacant after the hospital's new multi-storey car park was completed.

The development will bring a mixture of two, three and four-bed homes as well as flats.

The proposed mix of housing proposed is 35 per cent worth of three-bed houses, 28 per cent four-bed, 22 per cent two-bed and 15 per cent one and two-bed flats.