Michael Innes is a Norwich based architect of international experience and hospital building experience. He was of the opinion that hospitals should be built in city centres when possible. This is based upon sound planning, economic and social grounds.
He thought that the present site should be large enough to redevelop into a state of the art modern hospital.
He has produced outline plans using the Colney footprint to illustrate how such a hospital could be built with 1,000 or more beds, without disturbing the listed buildings, without disturbing clinical activity, with 1,000 car park spaces, in the same time span and at considerably reduced cost.
These were not fully worked up plans and were to serve as an illustration of a possible way to redevelop the old hospital. They were accompanied by detailed text and analysis.
Michael Innes gave a public demonstration of his plans at the City Hall in May 1996. Each member of the South Norfolk District Council Planning Committee and The Norfolk and Norwich Healthcare Trust was invited by personal letter. The meeting was advertised in the press and by posters. Not one member of the Planning Committee or the Trust turned up or even sent an apology. When questioned about their non-appearence afterwards the chairman of the medical committee of the Trust said "Why should we?"
Michael Innes gave several other demonstrations of his ideas to interested people. They are currently on display at Great Yarmouth public library and at a surgery in Thorpe Road, Norwich.
The plans were prepared as 9 x A1 posters and displayed for a couple of weeks at the Mall shopping precint in Norwich for a couple of weeks in the summer of 1997. A visiting book was left nearby. Comment was overwhelmingly in favour of trying to Keep Our Hospital in Norwich and people could not understand why the authorities were deaf to their wishes and would not listen to Michael Innes' ideas. Some of the remarks written by visitors in the book can be found elsewhere on this site.
Mr Innes has taken the "footprint" of the Colney hospital and placed it inside the existing 16 acre N&N site.
Central to his plan is the removal of the car park from the centre of the site, allowing room for new buildings
Car parking would be put underground and the buildings on St Stephen's Road would be kept. The final stage of a phased development would be to replace the tower blocks with new ward buildings.
At the centre of the site would be an open green space and a coverd walkway would link both sides of the site.
Mr Innes said: "I feel there's been no real public debate about redevelopment of the N&N site.
"I think the N&N has, like Topsy, just growed and I sympathise with the view that it seems beyond redevelopment. But I personally question whether a public authority should abandon such an important site.
"I do feel the redevelopmeent of the N&N is reasonable, possible, and could achieve a hospital at least as good as Colney.
"The savings to the taxpayer could be as much as £30 million when you take into account the money being writtenoff. Around £62 million has been written off and investemnt at the N&N is still going on at roughly the rate of £2 million a year."
In 1992 the Department of Health carried out a feasibility study which concluded it would not be cost effective to redevelop the N&N.
But Mr Innes said that the study lacked vision and new thinking on the siting of hospitals was now in favour of city centres.
"You would be hard pressed to find a better site, within a mile radius is the bus station and the railway station," he said . "The hospital is on the inner ring road, and plays an important role in the city's economy. I have taken a broad brush look at the issue and by phasing work I don't think there's much in terms of disruption."
The cost of the new building.
The cost of building at Colney is calculated as £193 million, but Mr Innes believes up to £100 million can be added to that.
That £100 million sum comes from the cost of "writing off" improvements, property and equipment at the N&N and West Norwich Hospitals.
Revamping the N&N could be achieved to give an overall saving of up to £100 million.
Mr Innes said: "In 1994/95 the trust wrote off £62.4 million and investment is on-going at about £2 million a year.
"In very broad terms if you develop the current N&N site and retain 30 per cent of the buildings you are already making savings."
Eastern Evening News 24th April 1997
| Top of Page | Home Page | Mail KOHIN | Index | The Takeheart Health Check |