The famous eye hospital at Old Street could move to just behind St Pancras station after a consultation found broad support for the proposals.
The famous red brick building on City Road , by Old Street station would close, and a new facility built by St Pancras Hospital in Camden. The proposal is a partnership between Moorfields Eye Hospital, the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Charity, and all three would move to the new site.
The hospital trust said that modern healthcare developments cannot be done effectively at Moorfields’ City Road site which was built over a century ago at a time when hospital care was provided very differently from how it is now.
Although the idea for a new purpose built hospital was widely approved in the consultation, much of the feedback worried about local transport links to the new site, with Mornington Crescent station as the nearest tube station to the site.
The various groups involved are now to present to the healthcare Commissioners, and presuming they approve, the plan would see Moorfields and UCL selling the current City Road site, buying land at St Pancras and building a new eye hospital there.
The architects group, RIBA launched a competition in June 2018, encouraging architect and design teams to apply to design Moorfields’ proposed new centre for eye care, research and education.
In December 2018, Moorfields announced that it has successfully bid for government funding to support the new site, to be called Oriel. Moorfields has also secured nearly £20 million of funding from the Department of Health and Social Care.
In total the cost of the new hospital is around £344 million.
If everything is approved, then they expect to move to the new site in 2026.
The current old hospital on City Road would be sold to help pay for the new hospital, although as it’s listed, it’s likely to be converted into flats or modern offices than totally torn down.
And of course, the London Underground announcement at Old Street to change here for Moorfields Eye Hospital will need to be updated.
We can but wait for announcement changes, it appears. Still waiting for the circle line’s saucepan handle’s existence at Hammersmith to be mentioned by the lady on the piccadilly line when its trains pull in at the ‘main’ Hammersmith station.
Hopefully it won’t turn into a coffee shop with a hospital attached like the rest of the NHS.
Old Street station is positively dangerous if you have difficulty seeing.
Having been in a few hospitals recently, I think you might be exaggerating by a factor of several million.
I well remember Moorfields in the late 1940s. After injuring my eye my Mother took me there for a bi-annual checkup. Great tall iron gates right out of a horror film. Enormous dark benches upon which one gradually moved to the end before being examined. Once, in the Old Street Tube station a small steam locomotive pulling a goods train hissed and clanked its way through the tunnel. Very exciting for a 7 year old !