Bootham Park Hospital development dropped because of spiralling costs

Just seven weeks ago, city councillors approved plans for the former mental health hospital, which closed in 2015, to be turned into a retirement village.

But in a letter dated March 17 sent out to anyone who had ‘registered an interest’ in the scheme, developer ERL said: ‘Whilst we’re delighted to have achieved planning for this scheme … unfortunately due to significantly increased construction costs over the last couple of years, we have made the difficult decision that it is not commercially viable to proceed with the re-development of Bootham Park.’

The news comes just three weeks after the future of another major York development - the planned Roman Quarter in Rougier Street – was also thrown into uncertainty.

The whole Rougier Street site was placed on the market just months after planning permission had finally been granted for a new underground Roman museum – Eboracum – along with an 88-room aparthotel, 153 new apartments and new office space.

Bootham Park Hospital (Image: Frank Dwyer)

News that the Bootham Park Hospital scheme has now been dropped prompted York Central MP Rachael Maskell to warn this morning that developers were clearly worried that there could be a recession looming, and were cutting their cloth accordingly.

“I think that is something we have to be really concerned about,” she said.

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Bootham Park Hospital – which originally opened as the York Lunatic Asylum in 1777 –closed abruptly as a psychiatric hospital in September 2015 after Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspectors raised serious concerns over safety risks.

Inpatients were sent elsewhere – some as far away as Middlesbrough.

The sudden closure plunged psychiatric services in York into crisis. It was not until almost five years later that a new 72-bed psychiatric hospital – Foss Park – was opened in Haxby Road in April 2020.

Bootham Park itself – a grade one-listed John Carr building described as ‘a jewel in the crown’ of York – has stood empty ever since.

But several weeks ago Enterprise Retirement Living (ERL) won planning approval to convert the 18-acre site into a 172-room retirement village with 24-hour staffing support.

Watercolour submitted with planning documents showing how the parkland in front of Bootham Park Hospital might have looked had the redevelopment gone ahead (Image: Planning documents)

The decision was not without its critics.

The plans would have involved demolition of the hospital's grade two-listed ‘pauper wings’, which date to 1862.

City of York Council’s conservation architect, David Carruthers, told the planning meeting that destruction of the pauper wings would cause 'substantial harm'. He said that estate cottages would also be demolished.

But Peter Martin, representing ERL, said the developer had tried but failed to find a design which would retain the pauper wings. These had been 'sacrificed for the benefit of the site as a whole'.

But councillors were told the grade one-listed Bootham Park Hospital building itself, and the majority of its grand internal fittings, would be be retained.

An added benefit of the scheme, they were told, was that it would formalise public access to the parkland and allow for the creation of two football pitches, with £2 million spent on landscaping the grounds.

The 'pauper wings' that would have been demolished had the Bootham Park redevelopment gone ahead (Image: Planning documents)

The pitches would have been mainly used by Bootham School - but with access granted to state schools and the public 'at certain times'.

There was no hint at the planning meeting that ERL were about to drop the development altogether.

The future of the building and parkland are now once more in doubt.

The Press understands that ERL never actually owned the site, and that it is still technically part of the NHS, being owned by government body NHS Property Services.