Mid Cheshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has engaged Gleeds to overseeing the replacement of facilities in Crewe with a new hospital.
A design team is expected to be announced imminently.
The scheme programme envisaged the outline business case being submitted in August 2025, the final business case being submitted a year later, enabling works starting in March 2026. Main construction works are scheduled to run from December 2026 until June 2029, allowing the hospital to go live in November 2029.
Leighton Hospital was one of five added to the government’s New Hospitals Programme last year when the full extent of the RAAC crisis emerged.
Leighton Hospital was built in the 1970s and planks of RAAC – reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete –are across more than 60% of the hospital's site footprint.
The trust has already spent tens of millions of pounds on stabilising and remedial works to wards and departments. The existing hospital is now to be demolished to make way for new building.
The programme reached a milestone in April with the purchase of four parcels of land adjoining the existing site, guaranteeing an additional 24 acres of space and enabling plans for the new Hospital 2.0 model to be finalised.
Gleeds regional managing director Brian McArdle said: “Gleeds has extensive experience in delivering complex public health programmes and we have seen first-hand the enormously positive impact that they can have on communities. Mid-Cheshire Trust does incredible work, and this ambitious project represents an opportunity to further transform the district health offer for patients in the long term, improving care and ensuring that its facilities are future proofed. I’m thrilled that Gleeds’ expertise has been recognised with this appointment and I look forward to collaborating with the project team as we get works underway.”
Russ Favager, Mid Cheshire trust’s senior responsible officer for the Leighton New Hospital Programme and Estates Redevelopment project, added: “To get to this stage is testimony to the collaborative approach to working together across Mid Cheshire Hospitals Trust, our partners, and the national programme team. As we move through the planning and business case development stages we are committed to this partnership approach, continuing the close working with our local health and care partners as well as the national new hospital programme team in order to drive forward with our ambitions to deliver our new Leighton campus by 2030.”
Leighton Hospital is one of five projects added to the government’s New Hospital Programme last year at the height of the RAAC crisis, along with Airedale in West Yorkshire, Queen Elizabeth King’s Lynn in Norfolk, Hinchingbrooke in Cambridgeshire and Frimley Park in Surrey.
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