NEWLY-elected Labour councillor Sue Toher is challenging Eastleigh council to take a fresh look at a development brief for Bishopstoke's Mount Hospital with a view to safeguarding facilities for elderly people.

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare Trust has announced plans to switch 36 beds to Winchester's Royal Hampshire County Hospital and fears are growing over the future of other facilities at the Mount site.

Now, Cllr Toher has revealed that a staggering 98 per cent of respondents to a Labour survey - more than 600 people - believe the vital services that the Mount provides should be kept in Bishopstoke.

But she says not many people are aware that up to 122 houses have been pencilled in for the land currently occupied by the Mount Hospital and surrounding buildings.

Luxury four-bed homes have already been built at Itchen Mead. But, now, Cllr Toher is set to seek clarification about the future of the site. She said people from all parts of the county - and further afield - were backing her call and had been returning petition forms with hundreds of signatures.

She said: "I know that Bishopstoke residents, like me, are passionate about saving the Mount, but even I was a little taken aback when people from outside the area, and from other political parties, contacted me to join the challenge.

"Like many others, my family has had cause to be grateful for the services the Mount provides. I promise to fight to keep it in Bishopstoke."

Cllr Toher said she would be responding to everyone who has returned a petition form and would also be sending all comments made to the various NHS Trusts who had an interest in The Mount site, plus Eastleigh council and the Health Secretary.

Prior to the election, council members were urged to call on the strategic health authority and Whitehall to ensure that services such as the in-patient geriatric ward, day hospital, physiotherapy, consultant outpatient clinics plus stroke rehabilitation not only stayed in Eastleigh but were improved and increased.

An Eastleigh Council spokesman said: "No planning application has been submitted and there is no outline consent for development on hospital land at the Mount. The council is already committed to reviewing the development brief which was prepared in 1999."

Trust chiefs have told staff that the proposals will not lead to any job cuts with everyone being given the option to carry on working at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital.