A DEVELOPER has been selected to build a £300m state-of-the-art hospital in the county.

Work on the Pembury Hospital flagship scheme is due to begin in autumn 2007 after Maidstone and Tonbridge Wells NHS Trust chose Equion Consortium to construct the 512-bedroom, 65,000 sq metre, seven-storey hospital, which will also include a 42-bed mental health unit.

The consortium is made up of three companies - John Laing, Laing O'Rourke and Interserve. The NHS trust has called the decision "a major milestone" for the scheme.

According to the NHS trust, the hospital will be the first acute hospital in the country with 100 per cent single rooms with en-suite facilities. The rooms are also designed to minimise slips and falls.

Planned procedures and emergency processes will be separated to reduce the risk of infection.

Inpatient and outpatient facilities are to be separated to address issues of patient privacy and dignity.

Children's services and maternity will be combined in a single women's and children's zone.

And the NHS trust says where possible views over the surrounding landscape will be incorporated into the design.

Rose Gibb, Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trudt chief executive, said: "This is fantastic news. We are tremendously excited by the design proposal."

Jackie Churchward-Cardiff, project director at Equion said: "The environmental setting of the Pembury site and the requirement to design 100 per cent single rooms provides an opportunity to build a fantastic hospital which sets a new standard for patient care in this country."

Plans are set to be submitted early in 2007. Final approval from the Government is expected in March, before work begins in the autumn.