The project, which has been in the pipeline for more than a decade, has finally been given the financial go-ahead by health officials.

The bulk of funding has come from a private donation by millionairess Sagle Bernstein who left the hospital an £11m fortune in thanks for the way it treated her dying sister, Muriel Thoms.

Phase one of works from September to February involves the football club car park opposite and refurbishing Barclay ward for the renal unit.

Phase two from February to April 2011 will see the removal of current renal unit, demolition of boiler house and construction access road

Construction of the main two-storey hospital runs from April 2011 to February 2012.

Services will be transferred and old buildings demolished during the spring, before parking and landscaping is added in the summer’s sixth and final stage, ahead of an autumn opening.