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The proposed hospital main building at Overdale will be as high as Hue Court and its planning application should be rejected, according to a former Greffier of the States.
Michael de la Haye OBE, who chairs of the Housing Policy Development Board, is one of 55 islanders who have so far formally commented on the application, which was submitted on 15 November.
The vast majority of these oppose the proposal to build a new hospital at Overdale.
One of Mr de la Haye’s criticisms of the design is the proposed height of the main hospital building.
“It is a building of enormous mass and height,” he writes.
CLICK TO ENLARGE: Mr de la Haye’s submission says that parts of the hospital main block will be as high as the parapet on Hue Court between Hue Street and Union Street.
“The planning elevation drawings submitted with the application indicate that the building rises from a ground level datum height of 56.830m above sea level on the southern side - where it is nearest to the residential properties on this side - to a height of approximately 87m above datum, i.e. an overall building height of just over 31m above ground level.
“To put this into a Jersey context, that enables the public to understand the proposed building’s height, it would be some three metres taller than the ground to the parapet height of 28.4m of the Hue Court apartment in St. Helier.
“It is clearly contrary to many of the policies of the Island Plan to propose that a building of this scale and height should be built in this location.”
The planning application says the main block will be five storeys high. A hospital storey is around 5m, thus making the building at least 25m tall.
However, it is stepped: on the west side it drops to three storeys, but on the northern side it rises up to six storeys.
Mr de la Haye, who is chair of the Housing Policy Development Board, also objects to building on Green Zone fields and the demolition of existing buildings, both at the existing Overdale hospital and surrounding residential properties.
He writes: “At a time when the States of Jersey have declared a climate emergency, it is simply not acceptable to ignore the environmental consequences of destroying so many perfectly good buildings which are capable of being used for many more years.
“Any plans to improve and remodel the healthcare services at Overdale should involve the reuse and remodelling of the current facilities and not their wholesale destruction.”
Mr de la Haye adds that Overdale was assessed by a Planning Inspector in 2018 when reviewing it as an alternative to the then preferred new hospital site in Gloucester Street.
The inspector said of Overdale then: “While this is an existing hospital location and within the built-up area, it is physically separated from the main town and the topography makes it inaccessible, particularly by walking and cycling modes of travel.”
Pictured: Field H1550 in April this year.
Another submission comes from Marcus Binney of Save Jersey’s Heritage, who writes: “Save Jersey’s Heritage strongly objects to this application for a major hospital campus in a prominent position on a site which falls with the Green Backdrop Zone.”
In its planning application, the Government sets out its case for a new hospital and how and why Overdale was chosen, which included a narrowing down of 300 potential sites to 82 to 17 to five to two to one, which included the input of the public, a Citizens’ Panel and clinicians.
It adds that a subsequent report “stated that the outcome of the technical assessments meant that Five Oaks, St. Andrew’s Park and Millbrook were deemed not suitable and Overdale and the People’s Park were the preferred two options.
Pictured: The Government says the new hospital is in the right place and is the right design.
“At that stage the Political Oversight Group and the Council of Ministers agreed that the People’s Park should not be progressed, and the decision for Overdale to be selected as the preferred site was endorsed by the States Assembly in November 2020.”
The hospital planning application will be assessed by independent planning inspector Philip Staddon, who rejected plans to rebuild a new hospital on the current Gloucester Street site in 2017 and 2018.
The public inquiry is due to start at the end of March, just a few days after States Members are scheduled to debate the Bridging Island Plan, which will determine planning policy to 2025.
Mr Staddon will assess the hospital planning application against whatever Island Plan is in place at the time.
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