TALK of moving Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital to the nearby Ministry site has been played down.

A top Newcastle city councillor mooted the idea last week of building a new home for the Freeman once the huge HMRC offices at Benton Park View are vacated in the coming years, with thousands of civil servants being moved to a £155m development in the city centre.

Alex Hay, Newcastle City Council’s cabinet member responsible for jobs and economic development, told colleagues that the hospital “needs to be modernised” and that he had spoken to the Department of Health about the possible relocation.

But the Labour councillor has now backtracked on those comments.

At the city council meeting on Wednesday night, Liberal Democrat Colin Ferguson reported that senior figures at the hospital had been left “as surprised as the rest of us” when the idea of the Freeman being moved hit the headlines.

He asked Cllr Hay to clarify whether the suggestion was a “carefully considered revelation of a policy commitment or an unguarded, off-the-cuff comment”.

Cllr Hay replied: "I was very clear at scrutiny that I was expressing a personal opinion. If I could take back what I said, of course I would.

"But as I have said, it was a personal opinion – something I believed might be a possibility and I did make that very clear at scrutiny committee."