Car park by 2020 ‘big ask’
A site has not been chosen, the designs are not done and a builder is yet to be found two years before Christchurch Hospital’s new car park is due to be finished.
The Ministry of Health says it still aims to build it by the end of 2020, but admits it is a ‘‘big ask’’.
Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB) member Aaron Keown said the target set by the ministry at the start of 2018 no longer seemed achievable.
‘‘We all know how long building projects take – it’s not 1930s New York,’’ he said.
Parking at Christchurch Hospital and the nearby outpatients building has been described as appalling and absurd. The CDHB refers to it as a challenge.
The ministry is responsible for building a car park. A spokesman said the ministry was still scoping a site for the car park, and would know midway through the year if it could still achieve the 2020 timeframe.
‘‘The ministry accepts it is a big ask to have planning, scoping, approval, tender and build done by then but it is still aiming to do so.’’
The ministry and Hospital Redevelopment Partnership Group (HRPG) were still assessing likely demand for parking. The spokesman said a new traffic study should be done before it finds a builder.
CDHB member Andy Dickerson was staggered the ministry was still looking at demand.
‘‘This is the busiest acute hospital in New Zealand. It should be the most accessible building in the city, but access continues to be an obstacle for some of the most vulnerable members of our society.’’
Banks Peninsula woman Rima Herber helps care for a 92-yearold woman who needs monthly eye injections at the outpatients building. The woman could not be dropped at the building alone and the lack of parking was absurd.
Herber could not understand why parking was not factored in to the building design.
‘‘These are people who are suffering on some level, and you want to make it as easy as possible for them,’’ she said.
The CDHB estimates more than 1400 parks are needed for patients and visitors to the Christchurch Hospital campus.