Hospital car park operator seeks to waive planning condition for improvements

THE operator of a car park used by Hull Royal Infirmary staff, patients and visitors is bidding to waive requirements that it improves the facility so it can keep operating.

An application lodged by Bank Parking for the Fountain Street car park is seeking to remove a planning condition requiring improvement works to keep operating beyond August 2024.

The company stated the desire for a marked out and lit car park reflected in previously approved applications did not take into account its uncertain future due to future redevelopment.

It comes as a master plan to re-develop Hull Royal Infirmary’s Anlaby Road site has earmarked part of the existing car park for a new multistorey facility.

The rest has been set aside for unspecified future development.

Bank Parking’s application stated the Fountain Street site has and would continue to have an important role to play in providing parking. But it added the master plan and future redevelopment meant the days of the existing car park were numbered.

The company’s application seeks to remove a condition requiring improvements so that the car park could continue to operate until at least 2027.

Plans stated: “Decisions on previous applications on this site have reflected a desire to have a surfaced, marked out, lit car park.

“However, laudable though this aim may be it does not take account of the fact that when a car park has an unknown future, the operator is not going to make a large investment in improvements.”

It added: “Renewal of the planning permission would assist the aim of the plan to provide adequate parking, but would not thwart the longer term aim to redevelop the site with a multi-storey car park and an unspecified built development.”