Edinburgh eye hospital: Patients welcome 'fantastic' Budget announcement of Scottish Government funding for project

But they said the priority now was to make sure the long-awaited hospital - to be sited alongside the Royal Infirmary at Little France - is built as soon as possible.

Edinburgh's Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion was declared unfit for purpose in 2014.

Finance Secretary Shona Robison's announcement yesterday, as she presented the government’s proposed Budget to the Scottish Parliament, comes despite the two-year freeze on major capital spending imposed last year, which halted all work on the new hospital, due to replace the current Princess Alexandra Eye Pavilion in Chalmers Street, which was declared unfit for purpose in 2014.

Sylvia Paton, chair of patients' campaign group Keep Edinburgh Eye Pavilion (KEEP), said: "It's fabulous, fantastic. It's great news."

But she admitted that part of her was "still sceptical" because of the way the project was previously agreed, cancelled, reinstated and then put on hold. "We won't just sit back and wait for it to happen, we will try and make sure it does happen," she said.

"It is just fantastic that she has now said yes there will be budgetary money for that purpose and hopefully they will follow through with it and honour their pledge this time instead of putting patients through all the angst that they've done over the last three or four years."

It is not yet clear how much money the government will provide or what the timetable for construction is.

Ms Paton said that while work on the eye hospital had stopped, the project for a new Monklands hospital in North Lanarkshire, which was also included in the Budget announcement, had advanced despite the block on spending.

"Monklands have been continuing their planning process throughout the financial freeze so they will get the go-ahead much quicker than we will."

And she noted the purchase of the land for the eye hospital had not yet been finalised. "What I'm hoping is the purchase of the ground will now be concluded quickly and they can get on and sort out the planning."

Edinburgh Southern Labour MSP Daniel Johnson also welcomed the Budget announcement and agreed the priority was now speedy delivery of the new hospital.

He said: "It's clearly extremely welcome that funding for the eye hospital will be included in this budget. But we now need to ask the question, how much is being provided and when will it be available to the health board?

"We need a new eye hospital as soon as possible, located alongside the Royal Infirmary and the other key health facilities at Little France."

He said the current temporary closure of the Eye Pavilion for urgent repairs to its plumbing system and the scattering of services to different NHS sites across Lothian underlined the importance and urgency of getting the new hospital.