New Jersey General Hospital plans approved

Jersey's planning committee has unanimously approved plans for a new hospital at Overdale.

The government put forward proposals for the £710m hospital - which is set to have an emergency department as well as radiology and maternity services - in September.

At a meeting on Thursday Jersey's medical director of health and care Simon West urged the planning committee to approve the plans due to the current hospital being "completely unfit for purpose".

He said: "The current hospital isn't able to adapt and expand to changing modern healthcare needs."

He added: "Patients that require transfer between departments use lifts and corridors that compromise their dignity.

"The design in front of you today minimises travelling long distances between departments."

Mr West said the new plans addressed "all the issues of the aged infrastructure".

He added: "Rain is coming through ceilings, we regularly have burst mains in the hospital.

"It is a 20th Century hospital that is no longer fit for purpose."

The Health Minister Deputy Tom Binet said the plans would "save 13 houses from demolition".

He said: "We haven't had to relocate the bowls club, we will save hundreds of trees, we have saved £20m by not having to make wholesale changes to Westmount Road."

He added that the current hospital did not have enough beds.

"It is causing chaos, increasing expenditure and putting patient safety at risk," Mr Binet said.

Chris Jones, the chief officer on the new healthcare facilities programme, spoke about how the current plans compared to the Our Hospital Project - which also proposed a new hospital at Overdale.

Those plans were approved in 2022 but were ultimately scrapped by Deputy Kristina Moore's government due to concerns over costs.

Mr Jones said the current proposals would have less visual impact than the Our Hospital project.

"These proposals will build a hospital that reduces the height of the previous plan by three meters," he said.

"The development will cause some visual impacts but benefits to the community will outweigh harm."

Michael de la Haye, who lives near the Overdale site, argued that the height of the new hospital would not be much lower than it was in the original plans.

"It is an incredibly large and big building," he said.

Mr de la Haye was the only person in the meeting to speak against the new hospital and despite his objections the planning committee decided to approve it.

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