KNUTSFORD’S War Memorial Cottage Hospital is set to be demolished as developers bid to build retirement housing on the Northwich Road site.

Leading retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone was named as the purchaser of the site from the British Red Cross in August, and has unveiled plans to knock down the structure to build 46 one and two-bed apartments.

The decision has caused anger among Knutsfordians who attended a Remembrance Sunday service at the hospital just days ago, with the war memorial having been funded and built by residents of the town and surrounding parishes in the wake of the First World War.

Charlotte Peters Rock, of Cheshire Area for Cheshire Action, said: “It belongs to the community.

“It was funded and built by the community in and around Knutsford, not any of the councils.

“No matter what the Secretary of State for Health decided in 1948, or the Knutsford Health and Care board, or the British Red Cross which has paid nothing to inhabit the building for 22 years, none had the right to dispose of the community’s war memorial.

“No one has consulted the community who built the war memorial. That community has never given permission for it to be disposed of or demolished.”

Northwich Road resident Wendy Fairman added: “I feel very strongly that the council restore the memorial for the use of the community. It seems absolutely crass to get rid of such a valuable resource when we are proposing to put so many houses that side of town.

“The property, whatever we do with it, could be used for education of health for the wider community. It’s a classic case of short termism.”

With the town planning to mark the centenary of the end of the war this time next year, McCarthy & Stone say they are prepared to discuss holding back on flattening the war memorial until 2019.

The company’s managing director Ian Wilkins and architect presented plans to the council, explaining that retaining the current building was ‘not viable’ as it is set too far back in the site.

Under their current plans, which will go out for public consultation, all trees are retained and the design will remain ‘very similar’. Brick and stone from the existing building would form part of a new memorial garden at the front of the site.

The plaque on the current frontage, McCarthy & Stone say, could be relocated into a form of memorial designed by people of the town, and town council has secured planning permission to move the statue of serviceman Haron Baronian to a space outside the library.

Mr Wilkins said any development would be ‘extremely sensitive’ to the commemorative aspects of the war memorial.

Cllr Stewart Gardiner, part of the town council’s War Memorial Cottage Hospital Sale working group, said: “There are times when you have to recognise the reality of the situation that you are in, and work with other parties to secure something rather than battling on and seeing other doors close.

“We had a meeting with McCarthy & Stone to listen to their plans, and made them very aware of the value of the site because of the way in which it was funded.

“I felt I was in a room of people who had an understanding of what that meant. The Red Cross, I felt, were quite dismissive.

“We have investigated how we can keep this building and retain it for the memorial is was designed to be in the early days.

“As a working group we now recognise that that battle is probably lost and we need to work with the developers to ensure there is some reminder of the site of what was there before.”

The working group will continue to work to ensure the town receives a cut from the sale, thought to be around £2.5 million.

Cllr Gardiner suggested that money could be put towards securing a future medical facility in Knutsford.