NHS chiefs say housing vital

Planning: Key worker flats ‘crucial’ and more tree planting promised

Health chiefs have urged councillors not to let a row over trees derail “vital" moves to recruit desperately-needed medics.

NHS Grampian issued a staunch defence of its affordable housing plans, which are currently hanging in the balance.

City council planners say the 110 key worker flats should be rejected because of the impact on green space near Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

But the health board insist the project is crucial to easing its recruitment crisis – and has now promised to plant hundreds more trees and create new leisure and recreation areas elsewhere on the Foresterhill Health Campus.

Scottish Government planning minister Kevin Stewart said he hoped “common sense will prevail” when members of the council’s planning committee vote on the scheme on Thursday.

Councillors called a pause in August to allow talks over objections about the loss of former allotments and a disused bowling green.

A hoped-for compromise did not materialise, as the NHS rejected the criticisms and refused to scale back the accommodation.

Now however it has revealed a £1.7million “greenspace" environmental proposal as part of wider plans for the area.

Residents have also questioned whether affordable housing is still needed after the oil and gas slump squeezed Granite City property prices.

Last night, NHS Grampian head of workforce Gerry Lawrie said it had “only become more challenging" to attract lower-paid staff to the region in recent years – with nursing and midwifery vacancies up 10% on 2014.

“Even with the downturn in the energy industry, accommodation costs are still higher in Grampian than for Highland and Tayside NHS staff,” she said.

“What we really need is a level playing field that allows us to compete with other opportunities available elsewhere in the country and these homes would go some way towards providing that.”

Other public sector workers such as teachers and police officers would also be eligible for the housing.

Mr Stewart, the SNP MSP for Aberdeen Central, said: “Aberdeen needs social housing for key workers. I hope that common sense will prevail and that a solution can be found, consensus can be struck and these houses are given the go-ahead.” The health board says that while construction requires the removal of 34 of 162 trees on the site, a third of those were unsafe and all were “too remote from the front doors of the hospital" to be enjoyed.

All would be replaced elsewhere as part of the wider “greening" of the area – for which it is seeking funding and which it insists is not dependent on securing permission for the new homes.

“I hope common sense prevails and these houses are given the go-ahead” “We need to make the hospital a more attractive place”

That would include play and leisure facilities, woodland and wildflower planting, landscaping and resurfacing of walkways.

Head of projects Derek Morgan said: “There is a recognition by both NHS Grampian and Aberdeen University, who are joint owners of the site, that we need to make Foresterhill a more attractive place.

“Additional green space is also a health resource in itself and will provide a multitude of benefits to people using the site.”

KEY WORKER FLATS: The health board says the housing is essential to allow it to compete with nursing opportunities elsewhere