WHAT a difference four months can make.

These bird’s eye photos give a clear view of how work is progressing on the £485 million redevelopment of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.

The ambitious project is due to be fully completed by 2024 and work on the first stage of the scheme started in earnest towards the end of last year.

The time lapse images are taken from the top of the hospital’s Thomas Kemp tower and Eastern Road can seen at the top of each picture.

The main picture was taken at the beginning of March and the partially demolished picture in the top centre is the old Latilla Building, which used to be home to the physiotherapy and rheumatology department.

The Jubilee Building, the former home of three inpatient wards, is to the right.

The white building on the left used to house the hospital’s nuclear medicine team.

These buildings were all emptied and services moved into specially created temporary buildings elsewhere on the hospital site.

The smaller picture was taken on June 30 and clearly shows all three buildings have now disappeared.

The cleared whole site will eventually be home to the hospital’s new main building, which is due to be finished by 2020 and will reach 11 storeys.

It will also form the new main entrance to the hospital.

Richard Beard from the hospital trust’s redevelopment project said: “We are progressing well.

“There has been a huge amount of preparation work for all of this and we have been working on it since 2010.”

The redevelopment will also involve pulling town the hospital’s Barry Building, one of the oldest in the country to continue providing inpatient services.

However this will not happen until the first new building is complete and services can be moved in.

Mr Beard said: “We deliberately did it this way round because the services we have transferred so far did not include too many beds to move.

“By leaving the Barry building until afterwards, we can make the transition go more smoothly.

“We are continuing to function fully as a hospital on the site and we are grateful for all the patience people have shown while this continues.”

The Barry building site will eventually be used for a new and expanded Sussex Cancer Centre.

Work is also progressing on the hospital’s new helipad, which will be based on the top of the Thomas Kemp tower.

A crane has already been installed at the top of the building and cladding has been removed from the side to make room for a new lift.

The lift will be used to transfer patients from the top of the tower down to the accident and emergency area.

It is hoped the air ambulance will begin to start flying to and from the hospital from the middle of next year.