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The Chief Minister has said he wants to see plans for a new £710m acute health facility at Overdale dealt with "efficiently and promptly" so it remains on track for opening in four years' time.
Deputy Lyndon Farnham said he was grateful to Health Minister Tom Binet and his team "for getting this crucial project to this stage" after a planning application for a new hospital as part of the New Healthcare Facilities Programme was submitted this week.
Its submission followed a public consultation as well as engagement sessions with Health and Community Services staff and residents in the area.
After an Outline Business Case involving detailed costings was put together comparing building a new facility at Overdale and upgrading the current Gloucester Street site, Ministers concluded that it would be better value – with the cost of the new plan estimated to be £710m, while the latter was estimated to be £1.3bn.
Pictured: The planning application for the proposed new acute hospital facility at Overdale was recently submitted.
However, in contrast to previous applications, the business case has not yet been made public – though the Government says that it "has undergone thorough scrutiny by governance and assurance groups and will be published in full when feasible to do so".
Although full details of Ministerial considerations are not yet public, Deputy Binet said the plans "seem to have gone down well" so far, with the facility due to provide a range of emergency and elective care services for islanders, including an emergency department, critical care, elective and emergency operating theatres as well as the majority of inpatient wards.
Reacting to the announcement, Deputy Farnham said: “I am pleased to see that the planning application has been submitted, representing good progress by the New Healthcare Facilities Programme team.”
Pictured: Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said the submission of the planning application represented "good progress" by the NHFP team.
Deputy Farnham continued: “It is important that the application is dealt with efficiently and promptly to ensure there are no delays, so that construction on this much-needed new hospital can begin in 2025 and remain on track for completion in 2028.
"I am grateful to the Health Minister and the rest of the NHFP team for getting this crucial project to this stage.”
But while the application is an important step, it is by no means a guarantee that the latest plans will put an end to the decade-plus-long saga to build a new hospital.
Pictured: Demolition work taking place at Overdale in anticipation of the new acute hospital's construction.
Deputy Farnham previously held political responsibility for the Our Hospital Project involving proposals a much larger facility at Overdale approved by former Environment Minister John Young.
However, the scheme was ultimately thrown out by the then-Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet when Kristina Moore's government came to power in 2022 over concerns that it was "unaffordable".
It may be the case that a public inquiry into the plans is launched, but this is not a requirement.
The current Environment Minister, Steve Luce, confirmed to Express earlier this week that the application had been received by his department.
He said: "We are in the process of validating everything that has been submitted.
"Only once the application has been validated will I be in a position to decide where it goes for consideration."
TIMELINE: A decade of (in)decision
FOCUS: 10 years since we agreed a 'New Way Forward' for Health... What happened?
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