"First impressions are not good."

Anything else?

I went to Milford for a brief visit to get an X-Ray. Prior to this, I had no idea that there was a hospital at Milford. But having previously made several impersonal visits to the Royal Surrey over the years, I liked the fact that I had an option to visit a small cottage type hospital.

But what a shock my husband and I got at the state of it - it looked abandoned! We sat in the car park for 10 mins wondering if we had come to the right place. Because whilst the grounds were beautifully kept (manicured lawns, shrubs and bushes well tended), we were completely taken aback by the dilapidation of the surrounding buildings and walkways. I would have thought it was a derelict wreck right up to the point that I entered the single story x ray block.

The first sight you are greeted with is the run down boarded up main hospital block, surrounded by metal fencing, then the broken down walkway, with crumbling pillars and exposed pipework, past a series of what looked like deserted, single story temporary huts with peeling paint and rotten window frames. Through gaps in the buildings, we could see the decay of must have been a pretty walled garden (or could have been the remains of another block that had lost its roof and most of its walls - it was hard to tell).

On the approach to and entering the x-ray building, the whole place was lifeless. In fact, the only signs of activity around the whole building was one guy trimming the hedges in the gardens. But a friendly radiologist and someone who looked like a civilian caretaker or groundskeeper greeted me at the front desk of the xray centre. I was in and out like a flash, no waiting around which was refreshing.

But how very sad to see what must have once been a busy local hospital brought so low. If some remedial work isn't carried out immediately on the building, its going to become an even greater health and safety hazard than it already is. I wouldn't trust walking under the covered pathway after a stormy night. You're more than likely to get knocked out by a lump of falling plaster or brickwork.

Is anything going to be done about the state of this building, or will Surrey NHS just allow it to become so dilapidated that it has to close because it is a danger to the public? It could make such a lovely medical and recuperation centre as another reviewer has pointed out it is surrounded by open countryside. Its a scandal that it has been allowed to deteriorate to such a degree.