East West Rail: Claims new Bedford Hospial car park will cost NHS £35m - but EWR says 'no expectation' for hospital to provde cash

During last night’s Full Council Meeting (Wednesday, January 15) councillor Nicola Gribble, the new portfolio holder for environment, was asked for an update following her recent meeting with Bedford Hospital.

Phillipa Simms, Clapham Parish Council chair, said she had problems parking at the hospital for “nine out of 10” visits.

“Having been involved in the parish council’s response to the current [East West Rail] consultation, I’m well aware of the changes proposed to the Bedford St John station,” she said.

“As well as the hospital car park and that area.

“I understand that you had a meeting with the hospital last week about their car park, and I just wanted to keep up to date on the situation there.”

Councillor Nicola Gribble (Independent, Renhold and Ravensden) said: “We’re actually quite surprised at the hospital’s response to our questions.

“And we had some quite shocking revelations.

“The hospital had been under the impression that East West Rail will build the hospital a multi-storey car park.

“Unfortunately, East West Rail will effectively loan the NHS the money, which they’re crudely saying is around £35 million.

“But they are expecting the NHS to pay back this debt – the NHS does not have the money, or the means, to do so.

“This is actually a big problem.

“The [Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation] Trust is worried about the number of car parking spaces and the congestion access and egress around the proposed development.

“So there are huge concerns.”

Councillor Gribble added that the council has offered to work with the Trust to find a way through “something that we didn’t actually anticipate hearing”.

“There are certainly questions to be asked of East West Rail,” she said.

“We do know that the building of a hospital car park will cause great chaos.

“We cannot establish where the car parking spaces will be moved to whilst the car park is being built.

“There are so many questions and we do not seem to be able to find a definitive answer,” she said.

A spokesperson for EWR told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "We want to make clear that there are no expectations for Bedford Hospital to provide any capital funding for the multi-storey car park.

“We are committed to ensuring a like-for-like replacement of the current car park on lease to the hospital can be achieved – commercial conversations regarding this remain active and ongoing but the exact details on this provision are still to be confirmed.

“We fully understand the need to minimise potential disruption to car parking for hospital users during the construction process and are reviewing mitigation measures to help identity the best solution.

"Further details will be provided in our statutory consultation.”