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Pledge made over parking at new hospital

Aimee Dexterand
Mousumi Bakshi,at Hinchingbrooke Hospital
Mousumi Bakshi/BBC A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and wearing silver earrings. She is standing in front of a silver barrier which is in front of a car park located outside a two-storey building.Mousumi Bakshi/BBC
Deborah Lee said parking at the new hospital was one of the main concerns raised by local people

The new Hinchingbrooke Hospital is set to have the same number of car parking spaces as there are on the current site.

The hospital in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, was one of four in the East of England found to have crumbling reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac).

North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust announced on Thursday that it had appointed a company to build the new hospital.

Project manager Deborah Lee said: "We've got to replace all the car parking that will be displaced, so we've committed to not reduce the amount of car parking as that was really important to local residents in particular."

The hospital has been included in the first wave of the government's New Hospital Programme.

A consultation giving people the opportunity to share their thoughts on the plans is open until 16 August.

Lee said the issue of parking had been raised by local residents, and she added that the hospital would have to "replace all of the car parking".

"We're quite far down the process of acquiring the land adjacent to us... which is currently owned by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary," she said.

Steve Hubbard/BBC An aerial view of a hospital which has several different buildings and car parks located at the top and bottom of the site. There are rows of trees on the right.Steve Hubbard/BBC
An aerial view of the current Hinchingbrooke Hospital site
North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust An artist's impression of how the new hospital will look. It is a drawing showing various buildings and a lot of open green space.North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust
An artist's impression of how the new hospital site will look

The trust said the new hospital would have single rooms for every inpatient.

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It will be on the southern corner of the existing site, allowing services including A&E and maternity care to continue during the construction process.

"All the services will continue until we open the new hospital," Lee said.

Mousumi Bakshi/BBC A red digger is picking up a pile of rubble and putting it into a white lorry, which a man in a hard hat and a hi-vis jacket is standing next to. In the background is a large white building.Mousumi Bakshi/BBC
The new site is expected to be open by the end of 2032

Some of the Raac was identified in the current hospital's walls and roof, causing ongoing structural issues.

The new development is expected to open by the end of 2032.

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