Taxpayers' huge bill for hospital fiasco

Taxpayers will be forced to foot a £200,000-a-month bill for a collapsed government plan to build a £1billion super-hospital in London.

The massive complex would have brought together services from Harefield, Royal Brompton, St Mary's and Imperial College on one site in Paddington.

But after talks lasting four years broke down last month the Standard can today reveal how taxpayers will still have to pay for offices, staff and advisers.

The public purse has already shelled out £7.7 million to keep the project afloat. But taxpayers now face further costs, equivalent to £2.4 million a year, after landowner Paddington Development pulled out, blaming delays by the National Health Service.

Paddington Health Campus, which represents the three hospitals and is now trying to recover £260,000 of its costs, will not be disbanded until after the election.

"This is a scandalous saga," said campaigner Jean Brett, chairman of the Heart of Harefield pressure group. "This is public money going down the Paddington drain.

"To have neither the land nor a planning application in while having spent nearly £8 million on external consultants is the opposite of an achievement."

Health chiefs said the scheme had been desperately needed to replace old buildings at St Mary's.