A hospital hopes to save £75,000 a year by drawing water from its own artesian well.

The Victorian well has been supplying only staff accommodation and other outlying buildings on the Princess Royal Hospital site at Haywards Heath because there has not been enough water to supply the main hospital.

Bosses now hope that once repairs to the system are finished next year, the whole hospital site can be supplied.

It is estimated that, once in full flow, the well will save about £75,000 a year.

At present the hospital has to buy metered water from Southern Water.

The borehole had to be shut down because its walls and pipes had deteriorated.

The water is carried more than 300 yards to a water tower from the borehole, which is in fields near Hurstwood Lane.

A scheme to cut out the pipe run with a new borehole next to the tower has been abandoned because there was not enough water produced.

Instead Mid Sussex NHS Trust has returned to its original scheme of repairing the old borehole.

David Long, general services manager of the trust, said: "It makes a lot of sense to draw off our own supply. It is something that hospitals up and down the country are looking at doing."