NHS car park tweak to reduce risk of tragedies
A RISE in attempted suicides has led to changes to plans for a multi-storey car park at Burton’s Queen’s Hospital.
Work has started on the new car park aimed at increasing the amount of parking available at the Belvedere Road hospital. Issues with parking have been long running at the hospital, with complaints from neighbours about cars parked on nearby streets.
The project is part of the Outwoods village development, which the NHS says “will bring together a range of facilities including health, community and care facilities on one site in an open community setting”.
Plans were approved in 2018 and work began on the much-needed three-storey car park earlier this year. It will go up behind the treatment centre at the Belvedere Road site and will have 425 spaces, as well as electric charging points.
The main construction contract started recently and will be completed early next year. However, further plans have now been submitted to East Staffordshire Borough Council asking for changes to be made to the original application.
The hospital wants to add additional fencing to the staircases as well as anti-climb mesh fencing on the upper floors.
In the application, the hospital gives its reasoning behind the changes, saying: “Additional fencing and anti-climb mesh is to mitigate the risk of attempted suicides that have increased in the recent past.” It comes months after Morgan Sindall Construction won the £6.4m contract awarded by University Hospitals of Derby and Burton (UHDB) NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Belvedere Road facility.
A multi-storey car park has long been called for at the hospital, with nearby residents often complaining about people parking outside their homes when they visited or worked at the hospital when the car park was full.