A HEALTHY future could beckon for the old Bury General Hospital site.

Pennine Health Care NHS Trust, formerly Bury Health Care NHS Trust, has submitted outline plans to demolish most of the defunct buildings on the Walmersley Road premises in favour of housing.

More than 100 new properties could be built on the site. A number of retained buildings, including the mortuary, chapel and isolation wards, would be converted into houses if the scheme is given the go-ahead by Bury Council's planning bosses.

A development plan submitted on behalf of the NHS Trust suggests access to the new residential area would be via Mosley Avenue and Lowes Road.

Bury General was originally built as the Bury Dispensary Hospital with money donated by Thomas Norris, a local textile industrialist, and Thomas Wrigley, a noted paper magnate. It became fully operational in March 1882.

The majority of the hospital was closed down last year, with a majority of services, including the accident and emergency unit, transferred to Fairfield. The remaining pathology department will moved to the Rochdale Old Road site by the end of the year.

If the outline planning application, a full scheme detailing the layout and design of the houses would need to be submitted for further determination.

Mr David Miller, acting on behalf of Pennine Health Care NHS Trust, states in the development brief: "At this stage we are only trying to establish the principle of residential development."

Planning permission is also being sought to develop a small car park opposite the hospital to provide new housing.

The success of the planning proposal and the sale of the land to developers could, it is believed, earn the Trust a six or even a seven figure sum.

Kids Academy Childcare based in Seedfield Road, Bury, has submitted a separate application to change the use of offices on the Bury General Hospital site, at The Grange, Mosley Avenue, into a children's nursery.