Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Royal Bournemouth Hospital Expansion


At last night's council meeting the subject of the planning application to allow Royal Bournemouth Hospital to expand on to Wessex Fields was discussed.

If you have been following this story you may remember that their application to build on the Wessex Fields site was rejected by the Planning Board last month in a very close vote; 5:4 with one abstention.

Because of the importance of the decision it was decided that the application should go before the whole council.

This land is the same plot upon which Troika wish to build their office development. The two applications are completely unrelated, although some of the people making deputations to the Council beforehand attempted to link them. The deputees opinions being that an expansion of the hospital was preferable to the office development.

The Council was unable, and did not, make a decision based upon this principal. I put forward a motion that approved the planning application on planning grounds that were suggested by the Head of Planning and Transport. Jim Courtney, Conservative Councillor for Throop and Muscliffe seconded the motion, which I'm pleased to say we won by a margin of 23:10 with 3 abstentions.

This now means that the hospital, if they wish (and if they can come to an agreement with the landowners, the Cooper Dean Estate), can expand on to this piece of land rather than attempting to develop their otherwise land locked site.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Our hospitals are set for closure in East Anglia, even after new wards and surgical units have been built, due to the severe cash crisis. Lucky you if you can get this new extension.