Plans for an 180-space staff car park at Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary are set to be given the go-ahead next month.
Hospital bosses applied for permission to create the car park in August, but members of Cumberland Council’s planning committee deferred a decision on the application at their meeting in November.
The North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the Cumberland Infirmary, said it needed an expanded car park due to continual investment in facilities, which in turn results in additional staff and visitor parking.
However, it added that although there was an element of futureproofing, the car park had been primarily designed to fulfil existing demand.
It said the car park would not result in an additional 100 spaces for staff car parking but an additional 34 spaces for staff, 33 for visitors and 33 for contractors, which would revert to visitors spaces and the allocation of further staff parking would then allow for reconfiguration and use of car parks elsewhere in the site allowing more visitor parking in Car Park A to the front of the main building between Newtown Road.
The trust said 4,000 staff were employed at the infirmary and Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital, depending on clinics and its current A&E department was built with capacity for 30,000 attendances a year and last year had an attendance level of 78,300.
It added that the planning committee chair suggested a reduction of 28 spaces in the proposed car park. It said: “This would equate to the removal of the line of spaces along the western boundary.
“This reduction equates to a 28% reduction in the additional 100 spaces proposed and 15.56% from the total number of proposed spaces. Meaning an overall reduction of 100% of the public or staff spaces.”
At the November meeting, councillors were concerned about air pollution, nearby residents and wondered about public transport options, which led to the deferment of the decision.
When they meet again on January 8, a planning officers report said since the publication of the original committee report, the National Planning Policy Framework
had been updated.
It now says that to ensure faster delivery of other public service infrastructure, local planning authorities should work proactively and positively with promoters, delivery partners and statutory bodies to plan for required facilities and resolve key planning issues before applications are submitted.
It said significant weight should be placed on the importance of new, expanded or upgraded public service infrastructure when considering proposals for
development.
The report said: “The proposal to create a new car park to serve the hospital should, therefore, be given significant weight in the determination of the application.”
