Teignmouth's controversial new health and wellbeing centre could finally get the go-ahead from planners next week, but controversy still surrounds plans to shut down the town's 70-year-old hospital in favour of the new centre.

Teignbridge's planning committee meets next Tuesday (13 June), when members will be recommended to give the go-ahead for a new £11 million facility in Brunswick Street that would bring GP services, healthcare and voluntary sector services under one roof.

Members will be voting on the proposal on planning grounds, and not on the overall policy of closing the hospital and moving services to Brunswick Street.

The application has been controversial in Teignmouth, with local protesters mounting a furious campaign against the existing hospital's closure. Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust claims the community's needs will be better served by the new complex.

The council already owns the land, where existing buildings would be demolished to make way for the new centre. The planned three-storey centre would include consulting rooms, treatment areas, offices and a 'pandemic suite'.

A report to the planning meeting says the new centre would bring 'significant benefits' for the town, although objectors say the proposed building is too big and that valuable town centre parking spaces will be lost.

The town's community hospital in Mill Lane is due to close, with its services moving to Dawlish Hospital and the new health centre. However, following protests, Devon's health scrutiny committee agreed earlier this year to investigate the possible impacts of the NHS proposals before deciding whether to refer them back to the health secretary for a second time.

It first did so in 2021 because it was unhappy with a lack of consultation over the hospital's future. The then-health secretary Sajid Javid asked for a review by a panel of independent experts, who decided the NHS Devon Clinical Commissioning Group consultation had been "adequate,"

But it said there were 'lessons to be learned', and Devon County Council is considering asking current health secretary Steve Barclay to review the closure again. Its health and adult care scrutiny committee also meets on Tuesday 13 June.

Councillors claim there is much more pressure on the health system since the original decision, which was made before the pandemic, while the League of Friends of Teignmouth Hospital has pledged £1 million to refurbish it as a recovery hospital.

The NHS, on the other hand, says its plan was supported by more than 60 per cent of people in a 2020 consultation, which attracted more than a thousand responses.

At a recent Devon County Council health scrutiny meeting Cllr Martin Wrigley (Lib Dem, Dawlish) – who is now the leader of the district council – said: "The fundamental situation on the ground has changed.

"It looks to me as if what is currently proposed in Teignmouth is not in the best interests of the health of the area's residents."

And Cllr David Cox (Lib Dem, Teignmouth) added: "I'm not against the NHS's modus operandi, but 30 per cent of people are stuck in Torbay who could be sent home but can't be sent home because there is nowhere for them to go. They need a halfway house which is Teignmouth Hospital."

The NHS in Devon said: "The way we provide care in the Teignmouth and Dawlish area is very successful and receives very positive feedback from patients and carers.

"Our model of providing care gives us more capacity than a rehabilitation ward would. when we consulted with local people in 2020, we estimated that we could treat four times as many people in their own homes as we could in a rehabilitation ward in Teignmouth Hospital with the same investment."