Council backs 17-storey Watford General Hospital plans

At a Development Management Committee meeting on Tuesday evening (July 27), councillors from Watford Borough Council approved outline planning permission to build a new hospital on its current Vicarage Road site.

The new hospital will see the majority of wards housed in three finger buildings, which could be 17-storeys high, and built next to the current site.

The plans would see more single occupancy rooms, an expanded emergency department, a new theatre complex, the latest diagnostics and better facilities for staff training and education.

The site will also be landscaped with a green central access pathway and public artworks. 

The plans were published earlier this year after the West Hertfordshire NHS Trust confirmed their preferred option was for a significant rebuild of Watford General.

A CGI of the new Watford General Hospital

The trust is currently finalising its Outline Business Case ahead of receiving final funding for the project which is expected to cost more than £540 million.

Under the plans for a three-site approach, Hemel Hempstead Hospital is expected to lose all inpatient beds and instead focus on planned medical care and long term conditions, while St Albans City will have a focus on planned surgery and cancer care.

The Trust have said that this fits within the NHS’s long-term strategy to provide the best care for all patients across the county by treating more people in the community, rather than in hospital.

Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting, Duane Passman, the Trust’s Acute Redevelopment Programme Director, warned the meeting that just under two-thirds of the current hospital falls below the minimum required standard and is having an impact on the quality of patient care.

Mr Passman said: “Achieving outline planning permission for the new Watford General is absolutely critical to securing the necessary funds for the much needed and improved healthcare facilities for the whole of West Hertfordshire.”

He added: “The Watford General Hospital development is not a like-for-like replacement. It will embrace the opportunities afforded by new medical and digital technologies, emerging models of care and also the learning that we’ve built so painfully from the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“The redevelopment of this site is also integral to the way in which the trust’s three hospitals will work together in the future, as each site develops a much more defined role – planned surgical care at St Albans, and planned medical care at Hemel Hempstead Hospital.”

However campaigners have argued a new greenfield site would provide the best care for the whole area.

Philip Aylett, from campaign group New Hospital Campaign, raised concerns about surface water drainage that was highlighted by Hertfordshire County Council, as well as arguing the height of the buildings was unsuitable for a town like Watford.

Dr Aylett said a 17-storey block would be the tallest NHS building outside of central London, and pointed to the success of Harlow’s new Princess Alexandra Hospital which is being built on a new site, rather than on its current town-centre location.

He concluded: “This scheme will cause years of disruption and risk to our hospital services, and the finished product will never provide the healing environment we have been promised. We and our families will be stuck with these high rises for 60 years unless, less like so many 1960s tower blocks, they are demolished first.”

The council’s planning officer Alice Reade acknowledged the concerns about surface water drainage, but added this was likely to come later in the process and could be debated on again at that stage.

During the Committee’s discussion, councillors also spoke of their concerns about the privacy of patients with 16m meters between blocks – rather than the 22m required for residential units – and the effect of wind-tunnelling along the ‘green spine’ path that runs through the hospital site from Vicarage Road to Thomas Sawyer Way.

However, there was agreement that this should be discussed when the Trust presents further details on their proposals and the outline application should be approved.

Cllr Stephen Johnson said: “I just wanted to make the point how important this application is. I’ve been a resident of Watford all my life and it seems like virtually the whole time we’ve been waiting for a new hospital. I can remember as a child going to Shrodells Hospital and having my tonsils out all those years ago, but the buildings are still there. It’s been an awful long time coming , so it is absolutely brilliant that that is the case. 

“I wholeheartedly approve of the application, but it is only an outline application and basically what we’re saying is we approve of where the buildings are going to be, and we broadly approve of the structures that are going there, but any more than that, that’s going come back to us later. Hopefully the hospital gets it right, and we will wholeheartedly support it if you do.”

The permission was granted unanimously by the committee, with Chair Cllr Peter Jeffree describing it as a “big decision for Watford”.

The outline application now means that West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust will be able to continue building its Outline Business Case for a new hospital on Vicarage Road.

The business case is expected to be completed before the end of 2021 or in early 2022.

The Trust and its developers will be required to seek further approval from the local planning authority on any final designs ahead of construction work starting on the site.

It is expected that building work will begin on the hospital in 2023, subject to further approvals.

It will be built to international green buildings standard BREEAM and will incorporate a range of energy efficiency measures and low carbon materials.

Watford Borough Council says £1m will also be set aside to improve access to the new hospital with new cycling and pedestrian routes, improvements to Thomas Sawyer Way and new bus routes to the site.

A new energy centre, and retail units, will also form part of the development.

Mayor of Watford Peter Taylor said: “It has taken us 10 years to achieve this milestone. I am absolutely delighted that the new hospital - which we have lobbied strongly for to remain in our town - is now becoming a reality.

"80% of the current hospital is in a poor condition – we are now on the way to having state of the art facilities that will be excellent for patients and our NHS workers. This is great news for our town.”

Watford MP Dean Russell said: “I am really pleased that we are one step closer to the proposals for our hospital getting the green light. The hard-working staff deserve world class facilities, as do the many patients that use Watford General.

"Transforming the site will allow for quicker diagnosis, more single occupancy rooms, modern technology and each site having a clearly defined role which I think is really important to the overall patient experience.”