Hospital car park plan is put back
NEIGHBOURING ROADS BEAR BRUNT OF PROBLEM:
THE multi-storey car park planned for Queen’s Hospital in Burton has been postponed for another year.
Its postponement until the financial year 2021/2022 could see the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust forced to reapply for planning permission.
It had scrapped the start date for the car park in September last year, several months after claiming it had been “deferred” but not “delayed”.
Meanwhile, the organisation has revealed new plans to build a new orthopaedic treatment centre (specialising in the care of bones and muscles) at the London Road Community Hospital in Derby. This would be to help quash the trust’s growing backlog in cases caused by the pandemic.
The trust is spending £40,000 to develop a full business case for the new centre but realises it will not resolve the backlog in cases in the short-term.
UHDB announced its plans for a multi-storey car park on the Queen’s site in October 2017 hoping it would put an end to the woes being experienced by residents around the hospital site.
Neighbours say their roads are frequently filled with people attending the hospital and seeking to either avoid paying for car parking or to find a vacant spot.
In March 2019, East Staffordshire Borough Council approved the plans for what would be a 425-space threestorey car park, which was last priced at £2.3 million.
Planning permissions lapse after three years of inaction, which would be March 2022. Construction was due to start on the car park at the end of August in 2019 and be complete by March 2020.
However, in September last year, following a failed bid by the trust to gain an extra £59 million from the NHS and an urgent investigation into other funding options, there was no longer said to be an estimated start date for the new car park.
In trust board papers this week, the organisation says the car park has now slipped further into the financial year 2021-2022.
Last year the trust had also revealed that Derbyshire County Council had keen intentions to buy the Staffordshire project as an investment once it is complete.
However, the council denied this, saying it had no intentions of buying the car park but was moving forward with ways to help the hospital construct the car park – but would not say how much money this would cost.