‘POWERFUL’ discussions over plans for a new hospital in Warrington have taken place – but a former council leader says they included a lot of ‘blue-sky thinking’.

Health bosses are hopeful a location for the proposed facility could be picked by January.

A long list of secret sites have been under consideration, with the potential for the current Lovely Lane land also included.

As fears over the hospital’s ageing estate mount, concerns continue to be raised over the battle with maintenance costs.

More than £2 million has been invested into the site over the past 14 months.

But, by 2028, hospital bosses expect there to be backlog in costs of around £30 million.

At the health scrutiny committee meeting on Thursday, members were given an update following ‘powerful’ talks at a workshop earlier this month.

Liberal Democrat Cllr Ian Marks, who was the leader of the council between 2006 and 2011, was among those in attendance at the event.

But he admitted it was ‘a bit disappointing’ there were not more council representatives in attendance.

During Thursday’s meeting at the Town Hall, he added: “It was packed out, as you would expect, with NHS people but I didn’t see too many people from Warrington Borough Council, whether they were officers or, indeed, councillors.

“I was impressed by the atmosphere, there was a lot a buzz about it.

“People were really committed to this, which I thought was really positive.

“There was a lot of interesting blue-sky thinking, sometimes you have to remind yourself, are we actually talking about a hospital or is it just a glorified community centre?

“But it doesn’t matter because this is what blue-sky thinking is all about.”