A NEW developer is poised to buy Ilkley's Middleton Hospital site and reveal its plans for a housing development.

Details of development plans by the anonymous buyer are likely to remain under wraps under a planning application is put in for the site.

But Harrogate council officers are calling for a full environmental impact survey before plans are submitted for the site of the former hospital on Carters Lane, which stands at the edge of the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, within the Harrogate District.

A West Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority spokeswoman confirmed that site's present owner, NHS Estates, was in discussions with a potential buyer for the hospital, and talks have involved Harrogate Borough Council planning officers.

She said: "NHS Estates, who are the people administering this, are in discussions with a new developer. If the developer gets planning permission, then the land will be sold. I think we will be close to signing a contract in about three of four weeks' time.

Leeds-based agent Knight Frank is acting on behalf of the as yet unnamed company involved in the discussions, and no details have yet been revealed of their development plans - which the health authority says are likely to be residential.

A spokesman for Knight Frank said the company was not yet in a position to discuss the bid for the hospital, or any of the details of the scheme.

Plans to create a 77-house 'Dales-style village' at the former tuberculosis hospital by the original proposed buyer, Clays of Addingham, were rejected by a planning inspector in 2000, after a public inquiry held the previous year.

There were a variety of concerns, including the impact of more traffic on the roads around the hospital, and the impact on the area.

The inspector ruled that the plans would be contrary to the area's green belt designation, and said it was 'insufficiently clear' what contaminants were on the site.

The hospital itself closed in 1989, and there have been concerns from Ilkley residents about rubbish and clinical waste being found at the site - including bottles and phials containing unidentified liquids.

Harrogate Officers were today expected to discuss the site with the council's Cabinet Member (Planning), Councillor Bill Hault.

Officers said they hoped to agree that any planning application submitted for the site must include an environmental impact survey.

The survey would take into account not only the issue of possible contamination from clinical waste on the site, but also an area of special grassland, and Tree Protection Orders on the site.

Ilkley Parish Council plans committee chairman, Councillor Audrey Brand, said councillors would need to see any plans before they could judge any development, but would hope to guard against large-scale development at the Middleton Hospital site.

She said: "If there's anything on the scale it was previously, we should object to it, because it's in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and because of visual intrusion and traffic problems."