The transformation of shops on the struggling Lister Gate in Nottingham into a major £25 million NHS facility has been delayed into 2026. Nottingham University Hospital NHS Trust (NUH) has pushed back the opening date for its new Community Diagnostic Centre, which will be set up in part of the old Broadmarsh centre on Lister Gate, in a fresh blow to the deserted city centre street and those waiting for the tests it was due to provide.
Nottingham City Council approved plans to redevelop the former Claire’s Accessories, Mountain Warehouse and Holland and Barrett shops at the partially-demolished Broadmarsh Centre in March 2024. The centre is intended to quickly test patients without them having to go to hospital, cutting down the backlog of people waiting for MRI, CT, X-ray, ultrasound, and other scans.
Officials at NUH, which runs QMC and City Hospital, initially said it would be open in spring 2025 – but have admitted it is now scheduled to open sometime in 2026. Paul Matthew, chief financial officer at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, blamed the delay on complications that had surfaced ahead of construction works starting.
“The preparations to enable us to start building work at the Community Diagnostics Centre in Nottingham city centre have been more complicated than anticipated which has led to a delay. We continue to work with our partners to progress this project in line with the existing plans.”
The delay is another knockback for Lister Gate, which has been littered with empty shops since Broadmarsh’s closure in 2020. The city council has been trying to improve the area, with it opening the Green Heart park off Lister Gate in September last year and receiving £3.4 million to knock down and redevelop more of the partially-demolished shopping centre recently.
Mr Matthew acknowledged the delay would be disappointing for patients and city residents, but said the trust had increased the number of test appointments at Platform One near Nottingham train station and in Hyson Green while the centre took shape. He added: “This means that more patients will still benefit from an earlier diagnostics appointment and receive the answers they need as soon as possible, until we can open the doors of the new CDC in 2026.”
Workers will strip back the empty retail units and refurbish the structure when construction gets underway. They will also remove the part of the concrete structure which connects the building to the former Broadmarsh shopping centre.
The CDC is expected to provide 100,000 additional diagnostic appointments each year when it opens, with this increased to 140,000 when at full capacity. NUH has said this will create 75 new jobs in Nottingham initially, with the facility employing 135 staff when it reaches capacity.