More than £22 million has been spent on external advisers to the new hospital project – with a further £1.5 million spent on planning fees and site purchasing in Kensington Place.

Later this month, States Members are due to debate ditching the controversial plans to build in Gloucester Street.

The proposition from Deputy Russell Labey has received ministerial backing and it looks increasingly likely that the project will be thrown back to square one – with no approved site. Members would then be faced with having to approve a new site quickly to avoid delaying the opening of the new hospital too greatly.

A freedom of information request has revealed that, as of the end of 2018, a total of £41,211,607 had been spent on formulating plans for the Gloucester Street site.

More than half of that has been spent on external advisers to assist with areas including service plans, business cases and project management.

A Future Hospital spokesperson confirmed that a ‘significant portion of the sum spent to date is site-specific and can’t be recovered to use on other sites’.

Previously rejected sites include the Waterfront, St Saviour’s Hospital, Warwick Farm and Overdale – which is understood to be the new preferred option among senior ministers.

The States have also spent more than £868,000 on a Kensington Place property adjacent to the current hospital.

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Two planning applications for Gloucester Street have been rejected with £630,000 spent on ‘planning fees’ preparing for the two proposals and independent inquiries into the project.

The project has a total budget of £466 million which includes a £70 million contingency fund.

In a report on the most recent planning application, independent UK planning inspector Philip Staddon said: ‘The initial alternative sites question that I was posed was: “Are there alternative site options that would clearly avoid those adverse effects or substantially reduce them?” My finding is that, based on the evidence before me, the answer is no. There is no perfect site, but there are alternatives that could deliver the hospital project with different environmental effects and consequences.’

The States debate on the hospital site is due to take place on Tuesday 12 February.