A major expansion of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital can go ahead, but only if a full transport plan is put in place to end the parking chaos which has blighted surrounding roads.
The Birmingham Post revealed how residents are so fed up at staff and visitors to the Hospital and University of Birmingham parking in and blocking their roads that they are demanding action before any further development takes place. One unknown resident has even daubed the word ‘idiot’ on badly parked cars.
They were particularly angered that the QE’s planning application to reopen some of its former wards and open a new Instute for Translational Medicine were not accompanied with any new car park capacity - meaning more people using nearby streets.
Sympathetic planners have backed their calls for a transport strategy and demanded one be drawn up and approved by them as a strict condition of planning permission.
Coun James Hutchings (Cons, Edgbaston) said: “We are keen to see further development at the hospital, but it is quite outrageous to consider this without addressing the parking issue.”
He said this was the latest of a string of new developments with no parking. “Time after time we get fobbed off on the parking issue,” and described council officials as ‘in denial’ over the problems.
“It’s causing chaos and has got a lot worse in the last couple of months,” he added.
He was backed by Coun Barry Henley (Lab, Brandwood) who pointed out that a council report admitted they had taken no account of the impact on surrounding streets in a transport assessment. While Coun John Clancy (Lab, Quinton) raised concerns that officials always under estimate the numbers of students and hospital patients who use cars.
The Edgbaston Residents Association, along with other residents groups and the local councillors, have all called for a transport strategy for the area.
They say that new developments due at the QE, the University of Birmingham, the new life science campus and Sainsbury's at Selly Oak and the new Dental Hospital at Pebble Mill will make matters worse unless a global view is taken.
