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Highly controversial plans to expand Westmount Road into a “super-highway” for the new hospital have been scrapped, according to the project's lead... So what is happening instead?
A new 'hospital highway' of up to 14m was deemed an essential element of the previous government's £800m plan for a 'health campus' at Overdale.
The expansion was designed to allow at least two buses – or ambulances – to easily pass each other on a 6.7m carriageway, while also offering a 4m pedestrian and cyclist-dedicated ‘Active Travel Route’, and around 1.5m allowances left on either side for physical barriers, walls or verges.
While it was supported by the Ambulance Chief, the concept was divisive, with politicians and residents living in the area speaking strongly against the expanded route at the time.
Pictured: A birds-eye view of how the 'super-highway' was due to look, with the 'Active Travel Route' marked in orange.
But while the new government's plan remains to build at Overdale – including an accident and emergency ward – it has now been confirmed that contentious highway expansion will not be part of the project, although the road will still be widened.
Health Minister Tom Binet, Health Chief Chris Bown, and others involved in the project, made a pitch to business leaders on Tuesday at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast briefing, and discussed the plans for the facility and access route in more detail.
The downscaled plans presented to industry – as well as to the public in a recently-published set of videos – show a hospital “that Jersey could be really proud of”, according to Mr Bown.
He added: “From my involvement in the last 12 months, I am very excited about the way that these have been developed.
"And if you look at the hospital design, it compares favourably to many across the world."
Attendees, who were also invited to take a tour of a hospital room using a VR headset, were told how the new project would be spread across four sites. Overdale is due to hold acute services: inpatients, theatres, as well as women and children's care.
The site of the current hospital at Kensington Place is to be home of ambulatory services – walk-ins, outpatients, and day care.
Pictured: The new Overdale site is due to hold acute services: inpatients, theatres, as well as women and children's care.
The St Saviour's site is home to mental health, rehabilitation and therapies, and the Enid Quenault centre in St Brelade is to remain the home of outpatient, child development and therapies.
"I'm pleased that the decision has been made to keep that building going and that it's not a temporary building," Mr Bown said.
Alex Welch, Transport Lead from the design company Arup, yesterday explained that plans to expand Westmount Road into a “super-highway” have been scrapped.
Instead, he said, “everything we’re designing has actually gone the other way, looking to reduce speeds, looking to actually make it more accessible to all users other than the car”.
Pictured: Previous designs involved the widening of Westmount Road.
Westmount Road will see very few changes and remain a two-way system, according to Mr Welch.
The hairpin in Westmount Road was a cause for concern several years ago when the plan was still for the Overdale site to house the entire hospital.
But Mr Welch said that designers were now considering a “wig-wag” system (similar to what is used at level crossings or outside Jersey’s fire station) at the hairpin – to alert road users that an ambulance is zooming up or down the hill.
Pictured: A “wig-wag” system could be used on Westmount Road to alert users about oncoming emergency service vehicles.
A system like this could be used at the foot of Westmount Road, near the Bowls Club, he explained.
In addition, active travel routes up the hill, allowing people to walk or cycle to the hospital, would “utilise the existing pathway network through West Park,” he said.
The multi-storey car park that had formed part of the old Overdale plans is also gone, in favour of a flat, open-air car park built on a current field.
Asked why this option was preferred over an underground car park, acting project director Jessica Hardwick explained that design codes ordered a separation between Health infrastructure and the car park.
She added that digging up bedrock would “cause considerable noise and vibration” and use “an awful lot of work and carbon”.
And a multi-storey car park, as the previous scheme proposed, would have too much of a visual impact, she added.
Steve Featherstone, the project lead at Llewelyn Davies, explained that modern hospital designs use a “pinwheel” shape with buildings arranged around a single centre.
Using this design for Overdale will ensure that the site has “a heart” where staff and patients can meet.
Pictured: Modern hospitals designs often use a “pinwheel” shape with buildings arranged around a single centre.
Mr Featherstone said: “That sounds a strange thing to talk about maybe but if you if you're at all familiar with the existing hospital in St Helier and you think: ‘Where is the centre of that hospital? Where's the heart of that hospital?’
“I think you'd be hard pushed to try and understand where that was. And I'm not sure if it exists in any sense at all.
“So it's important because it's the meeting point; it's the distributary point for both clinical staff and for patients and visitors.
“It's the opportunity for clinicians in particular to be able to meet informally, exchange knowledge and so on.”
He added that the buildings were positioned to interact with the valley and St Aubin’s Bay, with expansive views from patients’ rooms.
Rooms, attendees heard, are nearly all en-suite single rooms built to have both views to the outdoors and to be easy to access from indoors.
A number of the organisations involved with the project are hospital development experts from the UK – including architects Llewlyn Davies, who have also worked on Great Ormond Street Hospital.
But there is demand for Jersey businesses, including in construction, who know how to navigate the island’s processes.
“We are looking for partners who have built hospitals before, but we also know that in this room, there is an awful lot of experience of how to get things built in Jersey,” Ms Hardwick told attendees.
“I suppose what we’ve seen as a success of the programme is those blended teams combining those different skills and experiences"
“So we’ll be coming to talk to you!” she said to the Chamber of Commerce breakfast attendees.
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