HIGH Royds Hospital is expected to be put up for sale in the next few weeks.

The Menston psychiatric hospital, which is due to close in 2002, was originally going to be put on the market in Spring this year.

But the sale was put off and now marketing of the Victorian hospital is likely to start around the start of the winter.

The 195-acre site with its Grade 2 listed buildings will be advertised nationally in the property magazine The Estates Gazette as well as locally.

And potential buyers will be told that the site is suitable for leisure or residential use.

A spokeswoman for the Northern and Yorkshire NHS Executive based in Durham confirmed that it was hoped the hospital would go up for sale in the next few weeks.

"It will go out in the national property magazine the Estates Gazette as well as the local press.

"It will be marketed to a range of developers for residential housing and the leisure industry," she said.

The hospital, still suggested as an alternative site for the new Wharfedale Hospital - if the favoured Garnetts site in Otley falls through - is due to close at the end of summer 2002.

In the latest amendments to the Leeds Unitary Development Plan the main buildings are earmarked for institutional, possibly educational, office, leisure or residential use.

The plan adds there may be scope for some additional housing and other uses.

The buildings are in the green belt and within the special landscape area. An agreement has been struck with English Heritage that some of the listed buildings could be demolished to make way for development.