THE long-awaited inpatient hospital at Overdale is currently being prepared – with a ‘hospital-shaped hole’ being dug and levelled, ready for a main contractor to take over the site, expected to be this year.
Meanwhile, today and tomorrow, [WED and THURS] the contractor who is front-runner to build the 50,000 m2, five-storey hospital will hold ‘Meet the Buyer’ events to help them work out which local firms can help them.
Bouygues UK – the British arm of the French construction and telecoms giant – is ‘Preferred Tenderer’ for the project: the favoured but not yet confirmed main partner.
Although the project is budgeted to cost £710m, as per several Government Plans, when it comes to selecting the main works partner, that headline figure is but one factor in deciding who should deliver the project, therefore an unnamed reserve tenderer remains in the wings, to keep competitive pressure and ensure commercial resilience, in case final terms with Bouygues cannot be agreed.
The government’s own project team hope that the main works delivery contractor will be appointed before the end of next month but are keen to stress that it is not a case that preferred tenderer Bouygues will be coronated.
By keeping the process more competitive than previous attempts to build a new general hospital, which stretch back more than a decade, the Government hopes it will strike a better deal on behalf of taxpayers.
Meanwhile, preparatory works continue at Overdale. Local contractor Ashbe and its subcontractors are now on site to erect the hoardings that are going up along Westmount Road and beyond.
They are also prepping the site before groundworks take place, which involve clearing and scraping the site, breaking up old asphalt and moving ground around to level things up.
They are, in essence, creating a ‘hospital-shaped hole’, ready for the main works contractor to move in.
The first area where construction work will start in earnest will be the western end, where the land naturally falls away to Val André. There, a lower ground floor will be built, which will house various facilities including pathology, staff changing rooms and plant equipment such as cold-water tanks and back-up generators.
Although there is no firm date for when the mains works contractor will take over the site, it is expected to be this year. “As soon as possible” is the line coming from government, knowing full well that ‘time is money’ for the contractor too, although the exact time is subject to the contractor’s own procurement processes.
Other work has progressed in parallel, including moving the government’s project team into its new home in the former Jersey Water headquarters next to the Crematorium, which will eventually become the acute hospital’s ‘Facilities Management Hub’, and building a new electricity substation on the eastern side of Westmount Road.
In line with HM Treasury’s ‘Green Book’ which defines how public projects should be run, the project team is currently developing a ‘full business case’ for Overdale, which builds on work previously done, including the ‘functional requirements brief’ which was published last January, a month before full planning permission was granted.
With the project team’s focus on the acute hospital – which back in 2023 was expected to be completed by 2028 – the other parts of the hospital equation – a new outpatients’ hospital in Kensington Place and a mental health ‘village’ by Clinique Pinel in St Saviour – remain unchanged.
Recently, Health Minister Tom Binet told the States that it was not yet fully confirmed which services would be delivered from Kensington Place. However, the principal that it will be an ‘ambulatory’ hospital – the main home of ‘walk-in’ healthcare – remains.
This week’s ‘Meet the Buyer’ events will take place on Wednesday and Thursday at the Grand Hotel.
The events are being held to allow members of the government’s team and Bouygues to meet the local construction industry and supply chain to share opportunities, capacity, skills and experience.
Anyone interested in going is asked to register their interest here
