A historic Derbyshire hospital will be offered at auction for a combined £2.6 million despite the NHS still intending to sell it next month.
In late August, NHS Property Services confirmed that it was set to secure the sale of the 186-year-old former Babington Hospital in Belper in September.
However, the property has now been listed for auction in three separate chunks, with combined asking prices totalling more than £2.6 million.
Asked about the intended sale, which NHS Property Services had said had been in the works since September 2025, a spokesperson said: “The sale of Babington remains with contracts exchanged on a conditional basis and completion still currently planned for October 2026.
“The auction listing is not being undertaken by NHS Property Services.
“As the transaction has not yet completed, we are unable to comment further on the purchaser’s plans for the site.”
NHS Property Services was asked why an auction would proceed if a sale was imminent and why the listing was not undertaken by it, the owner, but it refused to comment further.
Auctioneer BTG Eddisons Property Auctions has listed the Babington Hospital site for sale in three different lots.
One lot is listed as Babington Hospital, fronting onto the A6, with a guide price of £1.4 million; “The Old Infirmary”, in the centre of the healthcare site, is listed with a guide price of £550,000; and “The New Infirmary”, towards the back of the site, is listed for £675,000.
The listing for the only lot listed as Babington says the 70,000-square-foot facility has “huge scope for development”, with potential for conversion into “a multitude of uses” and positive discussions about regeneration into 70 flats.
Details for “The New Infirmary” say the 22,000-square-foot facility is a former hospital building which poses an “excellent opportunity” for conversion into medical uses, a care home, offices, a business centre or homes.
Meanwhile, “The Old Infirmary” listing says the 19,000-square-foot facility also poses an “excellent opportunity” for conversion into medical uses, a care home, offices, a business centre or apartments.
The NHS had sealed the fate of the former hospital site in 2018, saying the complex was not fit for purpose as a modern healthcare facility and could not be upgraded to continue that use without an unviable level of investment.
Having listed the property for sale in early 2024, the last remaining barrier to the sale was the completion of the new £15 million Babington Health Centre in the site grounds, which will take on the last remaining services at the ageing hospital.
This new health centre, replacing and upgrading the previous clinic and in the works since the announced closure of Babington in 2018, opened to patients on 17 August.
Large parts of the sprawling four-acre site are unusable for modern health services, and a significant asbestos issue is confined to the basement, with flooding known to carry five feet of water into the lower parts of the property.
In November 2019, a number of patients had to be evacuated from the hospital due to floodwater.
Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, which operated the hospital, had said in 2021 that parts of its estate “run a serious risk of imminent breakdown” and were “unacceptable in present condition”.
It said parts had already been vacated entirely, relating to non-clinical areas such as corporate and support services.
The property opened as a workhouse in 1838, costing £8,700 to build, before the NHS took over services in 1948 after the creation of the National Health Service, providing local health services until the present day.
James Vandenbrook, director at BTG Eddisons Property Auctions, said: “This is a substantial property disposal and an interesting proposition for investors and developers, especially given the positivity around an extensive residential scheme being developed on the largest lot.
“The sale of the three sites would also release valuable capital for Derbyshire Community Services NHS Trust from buildings which, following the opening of Belper’s state-of-the-art new health facility, are no longer required.
“Clearly, the listed buildings, which form part of the largest lot, will need to be taken into account in any redevelopment proposals, but they are also part of what makes this historic site so unique.”
By Eddie Bisknell, Local Democracy Reporter