BOSSES behind plans for a £36m hospital in the New Forest have promised to deliver an award-winning facility.

New Forest Primary Care Trust and its private sector partner, Ryhurst Ltd, are proposing to build a 100-bed complex on the outskirts of Lymington.

The scheme was formally unveiled at a public meeting at Lymington Town Hall yesterday.

A one-hour presentation included a virtual reality tour of the three-storey hospital, which is due to open in the summer of 2006.

The state-of-the-art complex will serve the Forest's 182,000 residents, plus the huge number of tourists who visit the area each year.

Facilities will include a rehabilitation centre, a minor injuries unit, a diagnostic and treatment centre and a six-bed maternity unit.

Known as the Lymington New Forest Hospital, the building will occupy a 9.7-acre site at Ampress Park, formerly the home of Wellworthy Engineering.

Alison Montague, Ryhurst's managing director, said the Sussex-based company had a proven track record in the provision of health and community care facilities. She added: "Our recent developments include a hospital at Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire, which was given an architecture award.

"We are looking forward to working with the primary care trust and developing an award-winning hospital for the people of the New Forest."

Work is due to start as soon as contracts are signed in May 2004.

The long-awaited facility will replace the 90-year-old hospital in Southampton Road, Lymington, and the town's infirmary, which has already closed.