UNCERTAINTY over a site for the proposed new community hospital for Blaenau Gwent will drag on for at least another month, and possibly into 2004.

The only thing certain about the location of the £36.5m project - which will transform the area's hospital services - is that it will be in Ebbw Vale. But whether it will be next to the existing Ysbyty'r Tri Chwm, or on the town's now vacant Corus complex remains to be decided.

Frustration and disappointment were palpable among Blaenau Gwent Local Health Board (LHB) chiefs, who had to tell board members at their monthly meeting of a further delay over a decision on the site.

"It is clearly disappointing that we are not any further forward, but I would expect that by our December meeting we would be in a position to draw a line under this issue, or at least know when we would be able to," said LHB chairman Marilyn Pitman.

The LHB voted back in July that a site next to Ysbyty'r Tri Chwm should house the hospital. Blaenau Gwent council had wanted the hospital to be built on the site of the former steelworks, but the plot allocated for the project on the Corus regeneration masterplan was considered unsatisfactory by health bosses.

In September the council proposed a second plot of land at Corus, near the West Gate at the Victoria end of the complex. Council chiefs said a hospital could be built here cheaper and quicker than next to Ysbyty'r Tri Chwm, because of the need to replace playing fields at the latter site.

Health chiefs, however, remain unconvinced. Gwent Healthcare Trust boss Martin Turner said running a second hospital away from Ysbyty'r Tri Chwm would cost £250,000 a year more than if it was next door. The alternative Corus site option had to be considered, however, and a feasibility study has been carried out.

Trust officals met experts from the Assembly's Welsh Health Estates Department last week, but LHB chief executive Joanne Absalom said not enough information is yet available to decide.

"The council, trust, Welsh Health Estates and the Welsh Development Agency will now meet urgently to bring that information together to try to make a decision. That meeting will take place in a matter of days," she said.