Queen's Medical Centre's long-awaited new £54m multi-storey car park sent back to drawing board

Plans for a new multi-storey car park at the Queen's Medical Centre in Nottingham will have to be redesigned - likely delaying the long-awaited project. The business plan for the 1,500-space car park was approved by Nottingham University Hospitals (NUH) last March.

However, these plans will now have to be altered for months before they can be finally be put through the process to eventually be considered by NHS England and HM Treasury, according to trust board papers for Thursday, January 9. The seven-storey building is part of the 'Tomorrow's NUH' scheme to rebuild the hospital as part of the government's New Hospital Programme (NHP), and is designed to make space for more clinical facilities at the QMC.

Its delay comes as a further blow to NUH, which was told by the government on Monday that the rebuilds of both the QMC and City Hospital will not begin until at least 2037. The announcement means a host of improvements, including the new car park, were "significantly delayed".

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Once it is built, the multi-storey will provide an extra 362 spaces and will be situated at the back of the current car park three and on the site of car park six. While the New Hospital Programme's (NHP) investment committee had endorsed the Outline Business Case (OBC) for the proposed multi-storey in August, the progression of the plan - which was meant to take place in November - was delayed.

The business plan and design for the car park will now have to be reconsidered and updated to ensure it meets the NHP's standards before it can put before NHS England. This could take around three months, according to NUH board papers. This will further delay the construction of the important car park, which was initially planned to be finished in 2024, but was then pushed back to the end of 2027.

It will also likely increase the projected cost of the project, which had already jumped from £46.2m to £54.2m in 2024. "The impact of this delay on the overall construction timeline is being evaluated and opportunities to manage the consequences being discussed with NHP as they would be contingent on the release of further funding for professional fees," board papers say.

The updated OBC will also require sign-off from the trust's board before being resubmitted to NHS England for review and later HM Treasury.