New temporary Countess of Chester Hospital car park planned

Earlier this year the hospital trust revealed proposals to build a new 'world class' £110 million Women and Children's Building at the site, replacing the old one, which would be mostly torn down.

NHS England has supported the plans, with the Trust receiving £110m of a national capital fund to make it possible.

Most of the services currently housed in the existing Women and Children’s Building would move into the new, three-storey 12,210sq m development, including maternity, neonatal, paediatrics and gynaecology, with increased capacity and additional modern rest spaces for patients, families and staff.

This is an artist’s impression of what the final Women and Children's Building at the Countess of Chester Hospital may look like. The final design may be different.

As part of the strategy, it had been hoped to build a new, on-site car park building in advance of work beginning on the multi-million-pound project.

The CoCH Trust aimed to submit another planning application with Cheshire West and Chester Council for what would have been a £4.2 million car park building.

However, inflationary pressures have meant this project would now cost an estimated £6.96 million, a sum deemed 'unaffordable' in planning documents.

As a result, and with the need to ensure car parking spaces are not lost during the significant building works, the Trust has now submitted addendum plans to build a temporary car park which would contain up to 436 spaces – more than the 329 which would be lost during building works.

The new, temporary hard-surface car park would be on the grassed area between the 1829 Building and Liverpool Road, with minor adjustments made to the road layout to accommodate it and construction traffic.

It is planned that once the old Women and Children's Building is demolished (except for the recently completed extension currently housing the neo-natal unit; the extension will be retained), a permanent car park of 313 spaces will be created on that site. The temporary car park would return to a grassed area.

Given other considerations, such as the removal of storage containers during the build of the Same Day Emergency Care Centre, it is envisaged the hospital would have a net loss of four car park spaces between now and when the developments are completed.

Planning documents say if outline planning permission is given in January 2023, it is anticipated the temporary car park would be in place for about 27 months.

The planning statement adds: "To maintain the progress of the project in line with timings set down by the NHS funding body, the temporary car park on the 1829 Site must open spring 2023.

"This is sooner than would likely be possible if permission for it were sought by means of first an outline permission and then approval of reserved matters. For this reason, full planning permission is sought, so that work can then commence as soon as practicable after it has been granted."

The current Women and Children’s Building was built in 1971 – 12 years before the main building first opened and 13 years before the hospital was officially named the ‘Countess of Chester’ on May 30, 1984.

Maternity services at the Countess currently support around 2,300 expectant families every year from Chester, Ellesmere Port and the surrounding areas including North Wales.

As part of the plans, they would use a new ground floor full delivery suite for 11 births, with two Obstetric theatres, before moving to a first floor Maternity Ward with 24 single bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms.

A neonatal unit with up to 16 cots will also be created on the ground floor, relocating the current unit that opened in 2021 after generous contributions from donors to the Countess Charity’s Babygrow Appeal made it possible, in a campaign which was heartily backed by the Chester Standard.

Planning documents previously stated the current Women and Children's Building is "suffering from a range of issues" and maintenance is "increasingly expensive", with full repair costs amounting to "tens of millions of pounds".

Such work would not only be prohibitively expensive, it would also be challenging for Women and Children's services to continue while repairs took place.