MENTAL health chiefs have scrapped plans to build a £2 million clinic at Lyndhurst after two schemes were sunk by an avalanche of objections.

Salisbury Health Care NHS Trust is now proposing to build the much-needed clinic beside an existing mental health facility on the outskirts of Totton.

The new scheme is expected to prove more expensive - but less controversial - than the previous applications.

Trust officials originally applied for permission to demolish the empty Evergreens Hotel in Romsey Road, Lyndhurst, and redevelop the site.

But the scheme was thrown out by New Forest District Council and an appeal lodged with the Department of the Environment was also dismissed. A subsequent application to convert the former Hawkslease nursing home site at Chapel Lane, Lyndhurst, was also rejected by the council and the government department. The trust has finally abandoned its search for a suitable site in the village.

Officials are now seeking consent to build a clinic on the old Loperwood Manor site - part of Tatchbury Mount Hospital at Loperwood Lane, Calmore.

The news was warmly welcomed by Lyndhurst councillor Pat Wyeth, chairman of the district council and a former chairman of the local parish council.

"It's a great relief," said Mrs Wyeth. "The two Lyndhurst sites identified by the trust were next to busy roads - and we thought they weren't the best places for a clinic. We also felt the sites were too small for what was being proposed."

Loperwood Manor is part of sparsely populated part of Totton that is separated from major residential areas by the Totton Western bypass.

Totton councillor John Dawson said: "Given the site's close proximity to the existing hospital I don't believe the new application will prove particularly controversial."

A trust spokesman said: "The development of a purpose-built clinic at Calmore offers the best opportunity to provide new mental health services.

"The clinic will offer much-needed inpatient services for people with short-term mental health problems in the New Forest, Totton and the Waterside."

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