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Lyndsay Feltham A201, One Westmount Westmount Road
St. Helier
JE2 3BH
Senator Kristina Moore
Chair, Future Hospital Review Panel
By email
14 January 2021
Dear Senator Moore ,
Our Hospital - Preferred Access Route
I am writing to raise my concerns about the process that has been undertaken to determine the Government's preferred access route to the future hospital site.
I understand the importance of moving the hospital project forward so that the whole community can benefit from what I hope will be a modern, state-of-the art facility that will serve us for many years to come. I welcomed the adoption of the amendment to P.123, brought by the Constable of St. Helier , and I hoped that this would lead to a more thoughtful approach to the planning, design and development process related to the access routes for the facility, as well as providing an opportunity to make the surrounding roads safer for all users.
It was with great disappointment that I learned that P.167-2020 had been lodged au Greffe prior to the community consultation process with local residents commencing. This proposition appears to have been lodged by the Council of Ministers in order to tick a box, and I do not feel that the work undertaken to decide on the proposed access route has been done in the way that was expected by the community.
At the online community consultation meeting that I attended there were two recurring themes that concerned me:
The consultants' lack of local knowledge, both of the political decision making process, and related to the community
The lack of analysis of relevant data
The meeting that I attended occurred in the week following the lodging of P.167, however, the consultants appeared to be unaware of the lodged proposition or the decision of the Council of Ministers to support the preferred access route recommendation. This lack of knowledge meant that the consultants were unprepared for how community members may be feeling given that they were being consulted with' after a decision making process appeared to have been concluded. There was a mismatch between what the community members expected and what the consultants were able to present. The information being presented was very technical in nature and hadn't been adapted to suit what those attending might require. This has not helped local residents to understand what impacts the preferred access route will have on the area, and may have even exacerbated their concerns.
Whilst the report accompanying P.167 contains a list of criteria that access routes were appraised against, it is unclear what local requirements these criteria are set against. It is noted that the project team that devised the criteria are used to working on large projects in very different inner city communities, and I remain concerned that the criteria have not been sized appropriately to the Island's requirements. During the consultation meeting I asked a question about what analysis has been done on how people currently travel to the Gloucester Street site. I was told that the team has the data but has not analysed it. Again, it is disappointing that the consultants appear not to have identified what the local requirements might be given data that already exists. Some analysis of how many current staff and visitors make door-to-door car journeys, or make their way to the current site using different modes of transport would be insightful.
The proposal for the development of a single preferred access route' also appears to not give due consideration to the fact that Islanders are not all likely to approach the hospital site from a single main highway' as you might expect within a larger city or suburban context. The future site is already a functioning hospital facility that is being accessed from many different routes by staff and patients, again some further analysis of how staff and patients currently access the Overdale site would be useful reference points. Ambulances, buses, trucks, cars, pedestrians and cyclists all use the current road infrastructure, whilst the future hospital will increase the frequency of journeys it is unlikely to change the types of vehicles that already use the roads, other than during the construction phase. The location of the
emergency services on the site will obviously require suitable access routes for emergency vehicles to approach the facility at speed, however, this again is not guaranteed to be via an approach route off of Victoria Avenue, therefore the whole road network around the facility will need to be considered and prepared.
As with any development, there is always potential to think creatively in order to find solutions, unfortunately, the way in which the proposition and accompanying report are written, there will only be one option that will be given any further consideration. At this stage of the design process this decision appears to be very premature, and could even prevent the type of creative and critical thinking that would bring about the best solution, and one that could even enhance the area and resolve current issues with surrounding roads.
In summary, it appears that there is much work still to do in terms of modeling potential traffic flows and transport options. Until this modeling work has been completed, there is no clear justification that the proposition as it has been put forward should be adopted.
Yours sincerely, Lyndsay Feltham