The site of the former Dartmouth Hospital will go up for auction for a third time after it failed to sell last month, it has emerged.

Charles Darrow Auctioneers confirmed to this paper that despite an undisclosed number of bids, the disused hospital was not sold at the September 18 auction.

The former healthcare site, located by Dartmouth’s waterfront and covering about 0.25 acres, needs to be sold to help fund the recently opened £5.4 million health centre.

In January, a ‘preferred’ buyer failed to close a deal, which led to the first auction in July. After it failed to sell, the site went under the hammer for a second time last month, with a £1.4m-£1.5m guide price.

Paul Heather, Charles Darrow’s director, would not give further details on the instructions of the Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust, but he hold this paper that the latest bids were “relatively close”.

Jake O’Donovan, director of workplace, at the NHS Foundation Trust, confirmed that there will be a third auction on October 24, although this time the hospital will go on sale for the lower guide price of £1.25m-£1.3m “following a review of the net book value by the district valuer”.

He added that the NHS continued to have “a number of interested parties” who may make a bid on the site prior to the auction but would not say why the latest bids were not accepted, or what options were being considered by the NHS if the hospital failed to sell later this month.

Mick Nicholson, a leaseholder of a flat that shares a party wall with the hospital site, expressed dismay at the lack of progress with the sale.

"I am dismayed that the NHS has responsibility for leaving a valuable site derelict and deteriorating for so many years. They have not even gained any revenue by renting out the parking spaces. This at a time when the NHS needs every million pounds it can get," he said.