Hospital's multi-storey car park plan

4:00pm Thursday 7th September 2006

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A multi-storey car park could be built to ease notorious parking problems at Southend Hospital.

Plans are being drawn up for a three-storey building with 400 staff spaces and 300 for patients and visitors.

Hospital officials say profits from charging visitors - and possibly staff - would fund measures to persuade people to abandon their cars for greener modes of transport, including a smart new bus interchange at the hospital.

Parking spaces at the hospital are in such demand that visitors often have to park in surrounding roads.

Facilities director Dave Walsh said: "At the moment, we have people coming to the hospital who might not be feeling well, or who are nervous, and we are asking them to park on streets or to drive around our car park looking for a space.

"We are doing as much as we can to get people not to be dependent on their cars, but the problem is not going to go away. The intention is that the car park generates enough income for us to fund our travel plan."

The preferred place for the car park would be the north-west corner of the site, between Cardigan Avenue and Carlingford Drive.

It would be built in partnership with a private firm.

The hospital has provisionally put aside more than £1million over the next two years, with the expectation of recouping £1.5million in the two years following that.

Although extra car parking spaces will prove popular with many staff and visitors, some residents are expected to object to the multi-storey structure.

Nita Burton, of Cardigan Avenue, said: "We are devastated. It is right opposite our homes and it will block out the sun.

"A lot of us have lived here for years. They didn't give us a thought when they moved Rochford Hospital over, with the extra congestion and the traffic.

"Now, when they are building this, our little roads are going to take a lot of the lorries."

The existing car park has only just undergone a revamp to create 30 extra spaces, but new barriers installed at the same time have led to long queues along Prittlewell Chase at peak times.

As a result, disabled drivers were banned from parking on double yellow lines in April, piling yet more pressure onto the surrounding streets.

The hospital's latest travel plan will be explained in detail to the public during an event at St Peter's Church in Eastbourne Grove, Westcliff, on Thursday, September 14, from 10am to 8pm, with half -hour presentations every two hours from 11am.

If the plans are approved by hospital bosses next month, they will be submited to Southend Council.

The multi-storey could be open by spring, 2008.