Plans to expand £22m hospital site set for approval
A private health provider looks set to secure planning permission for a major new hospital facility in Birmingham’s Edgbaston Medical Quarter.
Circle Health is proposing to install the new 19,000sqm facility on Plot 5 – the former home of the BBC’s Pebble Mill studios, off Pebble Mill Road.
Outline planning permission for the use of the site for a hospital was granted in 2014, although this only applied to a 15,000sqm facility.
The following year, reserved matters approval was granted for a 14,938sqm hospital. This £22m hospital is currently under construction.
However, following the reserved matters consent, a further occupier for the hospital has come on board with plans to provide an in-patient rehabilitation centre with patients staying for treatment following surgery. This requires a further 4,000sqm of floor space – increasing the size of the building to up to 19,000sqm in total.
The building is proposed to be on the same footprint as the one previously approved and under construction hospital building. Some floors, as proposed, have expanded and would result in a reconfiguration of the internal layout and new floor areas are also proposed to accommodate the additional rehabilitation space.
The hospital building would continue to be developed in two phases.
The first phase of the scheme would see the development of a 13,831sqm facility and associated car parking including surface-level and under-croft parking to provide 260 spaces – 147 of which would be at surface level.
The initial phase would also include a clinical wing housing operating theatres, recovery areas and a diagnostic imaging centre and a hospitality wing with a single storey consulting block, administration offices, physiotherapy department, 41 inpatient bedrooms at second and third floor and a café area at the ground floor.
The second phase would bring the floor space to 18,884sqm with 315 car parking spaces – of which 88 spaces would be located within the proposed decked car park. This phase would accommodate 50 inpatient bedrooms on both the second and third floors above the clinical wing and a further 21 inpatient bedrooms in the hospitality wing at fourth floor.
At phase one, the building would consist of a four-storey hospitality wing and a double storey clinical wing, while the second phase would add a further storey to the hospitality wing and two storeys to the clinical wing fronting Pebble Mill Road – forming a five-storey hospitality wing and a four-storey clinical wing.
The additional floor space would be accommodated in the form of a second and third floor over the clinical wing to the rear towards the delivery yard creating an internal courtyard.
A report to Thursday’s Birmingham city planning committee states the scheme is acceptable in terms of its design, access and parking, and landscaping.
“It continues to represent a significant economic investment and will further the regeneration objectives for this area of the city,” states the report.
“As the proposal would provide significant economic and social benefits, would provide further local employment and does not have an environmental impact that could be regarded as significant, (it) should be approved.”
