A RECENT review of the Overdale hospital project ‘casts sufficient doubt’ on the affordability and delivery of the scheme, the Treasury Minister has said.
During a Future Hospital panel hearing yesterday, Deputy Ian Gorst reiterated that the project would have been unable to be completed within the budget agreed by the previous Assembly.
Panel members Deputies Sam Mézec, Lyndsay Feltham and Geoff Southern questioned whether a recent review of the options for a new hospital had been carried out with ministerial minds already made up.
Chief Minister Kristina Moore called for the review, carried out by independent consultant Alan Moore. He found that a hybrid option would cost an estimated £635m, although he emphasised that more detailed work would need to be carried out to prepare a business case for the scheme. Ministers have since proposed a split-site hospital spread across the existing Gloucester Street site, adjacent land in Kensington Place and Overdale.
Speaking during yesterday’s hearing, Deputy Gorst said: ‘Economic circumstances have changed beyond recognition from when the project started. We could not strike a contract with the design and delivery partner. We would have needed to go back to the States.
‘We can argue about the politics of the word ‘‘unaffordable’’ but the reality is the decision the States previously made could no longer be delivered in line with the planning permission or the decision of the States. We now have a review from an expert that casts sufficient doubt on what can be delivered.’
Deputy Moore and Health Minister Karen Wilson and Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet also appeared before the panel.
