TRUST IN DENIAL AS DOUBTS GROW OVER MONEY AND DESIGN FOR WATFORD’S TOWERING INFIRMARY

The West Hertfordshire Trust was in full denial mode last week as it insisted that all was well with its 260-foot tower block hospital for Watford.

But there’s growing uncertainty that the Trust will get the money to build the hospital – or approval for its preferred design.

• On finance, a Trust Board meeting on 5 October was assured that there was ‘full funding’ for its triple-tower, 400-foot wide design. A Trust official claimed not to know that funding could be changed under future government finance reviews. Yet the Department of Health made clear in a press release in May that funding could be altered by government. In tough times for public spending, that financial uncertainty casts doubt on the Trust’s £1.1 bn plus Watford plans – among the most expensive of all the ‘new’ hospitals.
• On design, Watford Borough councillors will be taking a very close look at the Trust’s present plans and may seek big changes. The Council’s policy is to keep new buildings in the hospital area to a decent height of about six storeys. That could mean lopping over one hundred feet off the height of the present enormous design, which runs to the equivalent of 20 plus storeys. The Council’s development management committee warned last month that it will also be looking at the quality of the design after doubts were raised about the amount of shadow that would be created by the three tall towers – crammed together just 15 or so metres apart.

The Trust needs to get real and accept that its plans just won’t work.