The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Hospital’s new car park to re-open soon
Parking: Electrical problems keep multistorey closed for three weeks
Desperate patients are still struggling to park at a flagship north-east hospital, after a weekend of construction work on a multistorey car park turned into almost three weeks and counting.
The £10.7million Lady Helen Parking Centre at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary opened on Wednesday, October 25, then closed a day later to allow for work on the “lifts, lighting and other areas.”
At the time, NHS Grampian said the closure had been planned as part of a short “soft opening” and implied that the facility would only be shut for a few days.
The health board said: “We would like to advise that the multistorey car park is currently closed from today and over the weekend.
“We aim to keep these closure periods to a minimum, however we expect there will be periods where the car park is not open to users over the next few weeks.” Despite the reassurance, the car park has yet to re-open leaving people scrambling for spaces throughout Foresterhill.
An NHS Grampian spokeswoman has told the Press and Journal the car park is expected to reopen soon.
She said: “We experienced electrical problems in the car park shortly after opening which has taken time to rectify.
“We are also taking the opportunity during this closure period to improve signage following patient and visitor feedback.
“This work has now been completed and is awaiting final safety checks and sign off. As soon as this has taken
“We had electrical problems soon after opening”
place, we will be able to re-open the car park.
“We can only apologise for the further inconvenience this has caused.”
Jamie Weir, the spokesman for NHS Grampian patient group PACT, said: “The new car park will make a lot of difference so any delay makes this more difficult, especially when it is coming up to wintertime.”
North-east Labour MSP Lewis Macdonald added: “I think it is clear that, whatever the purpose of opening for around 24 hours, it served no useful purpose for the users.
“When it does open properly, I hope they can rely on it staying open.”