THIS is the swanky new entrance area which is to greet visitors at Southampton General Hospital.

Health chiefs are to spend £700,000 building a piazza opposite the main doors as part of a massive development project already under way on the site.

The new scheme will replace the current pond area, which was ruled to be not making the best use of the scarce public space outside the hospital.

Contractors have already drained the fish pond - which has been a popular focal point for hospital patients and visitors - to make way for building work to start later this year.

Fish were safely transferred to alternative garden ponds belonging to hospital staff before the pump was switched off. Health chiefs decided the pond should be replaced with a more versatile public area as part of a £53m cardiac development, due for completion in late 2006.

Existing roads and footpaths are also being reworked as part of the huge expansion scheme.

Hospital staff, patients and visitors had the chance to vote on three different centrepieces for the new piazza, which will be sited between a lawn area, cycle parking and smoking shelters.

The chosen scheme will consist of an open space dominated by stainless steel, stone and acrylic spheres, some of which will be designed as water features. Consultants behind the scheme say dramatic lighting and contrasting textures will create 'a unique and visually stimulating focal point'.

But the plans have already run into controversy, with some members of staff concerned about two ducks which they believed had been nesting near the pond. If found, any nest - which would be protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act - could have delayed building work starting on the new piazza.

One hospital worker told the Daily Echo: "Two ducks have been coming to the hospital for the past five years. Everyone has been enthralled by them, especially when their ducklings have hatched.

"This has been the worst possible time to drain the pond as the ducks are nesting. The hospital has had all winter to fill in the pond but has shown no concern for the wildlife by acting now."

The hospital employee, who asked not to be named, said the nest - with eggs in it - had been seen in bushes between the pond and the hospital car park.

A spokesman for the RSPCA confirmed it would be an offence to move the nest under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1989, which says birds' eggs and nests should not be disturbed.

But hospital officials insisted there had been no duck nest near the pond.

Hospital spokeswoman Marilyn Kay said senior estates officers and two gardeners had hunted high and low around the bushes and could find no trace of either a nest or eggs.

"We can only conclude there is no nest," she said. "The ducks have been seen around but they have been simply calling in and flying off again - not usually the behaviour of ducks protecting their eggs."

She added: "The ducks are regular visitors to the hospital and no one wants any harm to come to them, but they are clever creatures which I am sure will find water elsewhere."