Health plans saved as PEH gets parking lot
THE Princess Elizabeth Hospital will get vital extra parking this year.
THE Princess Elizabeth Hospital will get vital extra parking this year. The Board of Health yesterday won its long-running battle with the Island Development Committee over a 229-space car park on the south-east corner of the hospital site.
The States approved proposals to create the £800,000 facility at ground level at La Corbinerie and rejected the IDC's calls to consider an above-ground multi-storey.
'I think it's a red letter day for the island's health services - it would have been a disaster if the States had said ''No'',' said board president Peter Roffey.
'I'm very relieved. We have been in discussion since 1999 with the IDC about a comprehensive parking strategy. We reached the stage that we had to ask the States to be the arbiter.
'I was worried because if it had not gone through, it would have thrown a spanner in the works as far as our whole site development plan was concerned,' said Deputy Roffey.
'It will make it possible to carry out the developments without making anything worse and now we can get on with plan.'
The decision means the board can press on with the second phase of replacing the Castel Hospital and medical wards at the PEH.
'We will lose quite a lot of parking during that project and would not have been able to operate,' he said.
The board has already started seeking expressions of interest for the car park and John Henry Court for new nurses' accommodation. It will be going out to tender in the coming months.
'The car park should be built this summer,' said Deputy Roffey.
Concerns were raised in the House about unnecessary stress caused to people who had to rush to visit relatives and could not find car parking; some had missed
visits because of the problem.
'If somebody is really on a pressing call to the hospital, they should alert the porter that they have left their vehicle in a doctor's space and leave them the keys,' said Deputy Roffey, who said that there were contingencies for exceptional circumstances.
The States was forced to decide on the parking because the board and the IDC had reached an impasse following outline approval of the new clinical block, acute mental-health facilities and the John Henry Court staff accommodation block.
IDC president John Langlois was very relaxed at the decision and said he had expected it.
He added that it was the right way to go about the talks between the two committees and the IDC had to ensure that it was being even-handed.
'The IDC did its job professionally and presented the States with the right planning issues on which to make a decision,' he said.
'The whole point of the 1991 resolution was that if a States development doesn't comply with the policies passed by the States, which apply to the general public, the committee wanting to do the development would have to get the endorsement of the full House,' said Deputy Langlois.
He had no quarrel with that.
'We saw so many members of the States who said that the IDC made the right decision, on policy grounds, that it is not right to turn green fields into a car park. But the States could, in this case, because it is such an essential service, override that policy and allow the development.'
Deputy Roffey respected the fact that the IDC had a job to do and was not disputing that it was right to do so, but believed that in this case it could have exercised more flexibility and saved the States nearly a day's debate.
