Plans to extend Aintree University Hospital have been amended.
Last month, Liverpool Council ’s planning committee unanimously signed off on proposals for a three storey extension to the existing A&E and theatre departments worth millions of pounds. The scheme will now return before councillors after the applicant - Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - tweaked the site agreement.
When members signed off on the plans on 1st March, it was under the agreement that the applicant would enter into a Section 106 agreement for the payment of £8,000 in lieu of the provision of two street trees and £1,732.50 in lieu of funding the Council’s Public Art Strategy as well as contributions to cover the costs of monitoring the agreement and legal fees. The Trust has now confirmed that two trees will be planted within the site, meeting the policy requirements.
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As a result, the application is now returning to the planning committee without the requirement for a financial contribution to street trees in lieu of provision. The other financial contributions and legal fees still apply.
The committee is expected to sign off the amended proposal when it meets on Tuesday 12th April at Liverpool Town Hall. Last month, committee members were told the expansion of Aintree Hospital would be “critical to the delivery of the hospital’s services” including the provision of specialist emergency stroke care alongside the existing A&E department on the ground floor, with the benefits of adjacencies to the existing radiology and A&E facilities.
It was said the development will provide a “reconfigured and expanded” theatre department, with two new ‘hybrid’ theatres which comprise of real time diagnostic imaging during the operational procedure. Three new ambulance bays will also be created as part of the new layout, extending the current provision located to the front of the A&E Department off the hospital’s internal circulatory road.
Planning committee chairman, Cllr Tony Concepcion, said he welcomed the original application, adding it was “looking after the health of the city.” The complete proposals will “improve patient outcomes, speed recovery time and reduce the period of treatment time for the patient,” it is claimed.
