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Submission – New Healthcare Facilities Programme Review – Anonymous 4
I live on Kensington Place and I'm very aware that the new hospital is going to be built around this area. My main concern is that the local residents' and restaurants' opinions and needs won't be fully considered.
I understand the need for the new hospital and fully support it but really think that some thought and care needs to be taken with how it looks and how it affects the area. Especially when considering the ground floor. Kensington Place has and has had some great restaurants in the past and I think it would be a big shame for the hospital to get rid of them all. I therefore believe that some kind of pedestrian walk/green area should be put between Kensington Place and Newgate Street. Restaurants/shops could then be on the ground floor of the development. This would offer a direct clean walk (not through the car park) from the restaurants to the Opera House. This would be great for residents, hospital employees, patients and tourists as it will give a lovely green area with vibrant restaurants. The way I envisage it would be patients could go to their favourite restaurant at the ground floor of the hospital with family members and then walk straight to the Opera House. And I think this would be lovely as the restaurants wouldn't be solely for the hospital but for everyone so they wouldn't feel very hospitally'.
I also think consideration could be taken to knock down and rebuild Patriotic Street. It's an eye sore and in a prime town location and some of it could be used for the hospital. The outside areas (parts that get natural sunlight) of Patriotic Street could be hospital while the inside (dark areas) could be built into a new car park. Obviously this would cut the car parking spaces by about 70%. So replacing all car parking would be important but this could easily be put underground across the whole of the hospital development. And we are also coming to an age where I would like to think car parking will be used less as people start to use alternative more environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Apologies if that doesn't read fantastic. It was mostly me chucking my thoughts down. But my main wishes would be for Kensington Place not to turn into a dull boring hospital area with no vibrancy. I really don't mind the urbanisation of this area and somewhat encourage it. But what I don't want is the area to become an ugly dead zone and in turn which encourages crime (due to its central location).