New car park works bring hospital rebuild closer

6 hours ago

Clare Worden,in King's Lynnand

Mariam Issimdar

News image — Peter Cox said the new car park system would be future-proofed to fit with demand

Clare Worden/BBC Peter Cox stands next to the construction site of the new car park. The bare sandy soil is exposed. He wears a red hard hat and a yellow high-vis waistcoat. — Peter Cox said the new car park system would be future-proofed to fit with demand

Work on a long-awaited hospital rebuild has moved a step closer after ground was broken on what will be a new multi-storey car park.

Space for 1,335 vehicles will be created at Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) at King's Lynn in Norfolk.

Once completed, the existing car park at the site will be levelled ready to build a new hospital. Replacing the hospital is long overdue because of the structure and age of the current building.

Jo Segasby, deputy chief executive of the Norfolk and Waveney University Hospitals Group (NWUHG), said her teams would try to "minimise" disruption so that people were not affected by the ongoing work.

"We've had to arrange things so that we've still got enough car parking facilities for our patients," she explained.

Peter Cox, project director for the hospital rebuild, said the new car park would be owned by the hospital and they were looking at ways to future-proof demand.

The trust that runs the hospital also had a commitment to a green travel plan, he explained, "to encourage people not necessarily to use their car".

Cox said data looking at the movements of patients and visitors via the hospital's new bus terminal had also been analysed, and as a result, a bus company had laid on a new route.

Clare Worden/BBC Jo Segasby wears a red-and-white spotted blouse and stands next to hospital buildings. — Jo Segasby said the QEH staff would monitor the impact of construction works on the flow of traffic to try minimising disruption

Patients from Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire use the hospital, but they are being treated in units held up by steel props, as a result of the Raac (reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete) discovered in the building.

Work to build the new hospital is not expected to begin until 2028.

Segasby, who is also chief delivery officer for the NWUHG, said that in the meantime, improvement works would continue at the existing site.

"We've just recently started a refurbishment of the emergency department to improve waiting facilities and clinic facilities in there," she said.

Segasby added that she was "confident" the hospital would be able to serve people while the new one was built.