PLANS to have a specialist kidney treatment unit in the former Teignbridge Indoor Bowls Centre, in Kingsteignton, have been scuppered because it is on a flood plain.

The building, which looks out onto the home turn of Newton Abbot's National Hunt track, was sold to the racecourse for £750,000 by Teignbridge Council after the bowls club, who leased the building from the district authority, ran into debt.

Devon Primary Care Trust was hoping to adapt the centre as a renal unit operated on its behalf by a private company.

In July the trust confirmed that tenders were invited for a South Devon Renal Satellite Unit and that it would be happy to announce who the successful tenderer was in the near future, plus the preferred location of the new facility, once the contracts were signed.

But this week came the crunch that a renal unit would not be opening in the former bowls centre.

A joint statement issued by Devon PCT and the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust ruled the centre out.

Wendy Shaw, communications manager for the Foundation Trust said: 'Regrettably there are issues with the location of a new satellite renal unit being at the bowling centre which we cannot resolve – namely the location being on a flood plain. We are now actively working together to find l From >an alternative site in the area'.

She added that they were committed to finding another site.

Currently the unit is based in the Newton Abbot Hospital, in East Street, but a new £25 million hospital is nearing completion in Jetty Marsh.

That opens early in the new year though a date has yet to be announced.

A spokesman said on Wednesday that there would be inpatient accommodation including a step down stroke unit, medical beds and rehabilitation beds in the new hospital.

Outpatient clinics for services delivered by secondary care clinicians, nurse practitioners and GPs, a reablement unit for inpatients and outpatients, a minor illness/injury centre and a low risk maternity unit, are also included.

It will also support the provision of care closer to home and aim to avoid duplication of resources that are provided in a district general hospital.

The spokesman added that it is aimed to carry out the move from the old to the new hospital as quickly as possible and within the one day with minimum disruption to patients and carers which the hospital's patient transport services would undertake.