WHAT’S NEEDED FOR WEST HERTFORDSHIRE
- New state-of-the-art emergency care and specialist hospital, centrally located in the area and offering safe and good quality healthcare
- Working with other hospitals and health services in the area
- On a clear site that’s easy to get to
- Good public transport connections and affordable parking
- Zero carbon, in a green and healing environment
- Future-proof with room to expand
West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust insist that the redeveloped emergency care and specialist hospital must be at Watford General. But Watford General is the wrong site for the redeveloped hospital. That’s because new facilities at the Vicarage Road site would be:
- Squeezed into a densely-packed urban area with congested roads and poor public transport links
- Some way down busy roads from major centres of local population such as Hemel Hempstead and St Albans
- On a sloping site with difficult access
- Massively disruptive during many years of construction, as the main work would happen just a few metres from the existing operational hospital
- At the centre of what is planned to be Watford’s largest new housing estate, with up to 1500 flats and houses being built very close by – a recipe for even more disturbance during construction and even worse traffic congestion for ever
This is not a healing environment.