Plans to put 200 homes on land at St Martin’s Hospital in Canterbury have gone on show.

Consultation runs until Friday, October 24. The plans show there is room for 200 homes on the west of the hospital site currently used for in-patient care.

Retired horticulture lecturer Maurice Mason hopes as much of the grounds of St Martin’s can be saved from development as possible.

Mr Mason, 94, who used to teach as Hadlow College, is a volunteer who runs gardening classes for patients.

He believes mistakes were made at St Augustine’s Hospital when it closed and does not want them repeated at St Martin’s.

He said: “I was privileged to be asked to modernise the grounds of both hospitals in the 1960s when we turned the area from a virtual prison into parkland which had tremendous therapeutic value.

“At the same time many improvements were being made internally with a much more caring approach to patients.

“If that policy had continued, St Augustine’s could have been a shining example of mental health care for the country. Sadly, other ideas took over and it has been lost to developers.

“But what happened there is sadly being repeated at St Martin’s Hospital where it is proposed to sell off a large area of the therapeutic grounds.

“I have voted for the option which gives better balance over the whole area, retaining as much of the grounds as possible.”

Mr Mason says patients were “over the moon” when he started the gardening club and have benefited enormously from it.

He had hoped to expand the club but says that may now be in jeopardy.

•A development principles document will go to the city council’s development control committee on December 9.