THE Deputy Chief Minister remains hopeful of a ‘positive outcome’ to the planning application for the Island’s new Hospital – as the government launches an appeal against the decision to refuse demolition of several buildings at Overdale.
Senator Lyndon Farnham was speaking at the end of a week-long inquiry into plans for the £800 million Overdale project.
As he closed the public inquiry on Friday, independent inspector Philip Staddon said it was his intention to submit his written report and recommendations to the Environment Minister John Young by the 13 May deadline.
Having addressed the inquiry on its opening day and followed its progress over the remaining four days, Senator Farnham said he believed it had been very well handled.
He said: ‘I think it was a very productive hearing – the inspector was very well-versed in all of the plans and he was very thorough.
‘It’s really important to hear from Islanders and we saw a lot of people who wanted to express some strongly held views, even though we might not agree with all of them.’
Deputy Young is set to make his choice regarding the scheme once he has received the inspector’s report, with this decision likely to come in the weeks prior to the general election on 22 June.
Senator Farnham said he ‘remained hopeful of a positive outcome’, although he thought it likely that if planning permission was given, it would come with conditions, which would need to be adopted.
Addressing the possibility of a ‘no’ verdict from Deputy Young, Senator Farnham said: ‘If the scheme is refused then we would need to look at the reasons why and potentially look at some fine-tuning of the design, which I hope could be done fairly quickly, but if it is refused outright then that would be the worst-case scenario and could delay the project and mean that the site debate and design of the Hospital would have to be reopened.
‘We have a States decision on the location, the access and the funding, so if we were to receive a positive planning decision then we can proceed without delay and deliver this project on time and on budget by 2026.
‘Any other outcome would lead to further considerable and costly delay.’
Mr Staddon said that after a weekend of reflection he was likely to start writing his report on returning to his office in England today. He added: ‘The minister is the decision-maker – he isn’t bound by my recommendation, but my report will be published unedited, and if he chooses not to follow [the recommendations] then he has to set out his reasons.’
Meanwhile, the Our Hospital project team is to appeal against the previous refusal of planning permission for the proposed demolition of existing buildings on the Overdale site.
Plans to raze all buildings at the Overdale site – separate to proposals to build a new hospital there – were unanimously rejected by the Planning Committee in February.
In the notice of appeal, it is stated that the condition of the existing buildings is poor and they are not suitable for reuse.
The project team has pointed out that since the demolition application was turned down in February, the site for the new hospital has been included in the Bridging Island Plan, which was approved by the States Assembly last month.
