A community is continuing to fight back against proposals to build dozens of homes on former hospital land.
Earlier this month, new proposals for a series of new properties and supported living accommodation on land which formed part of the former Alder Hey Hospital site on Alder Road were formally lodged with Liverpool Council. This was a reshaped application after developers Step Places and McCarthy Stone’s original designs to build four blocks up to five storeys high was scaled back.
Now community voices against the scheme known as Springfield Gardens are continuing to grow louder.
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Following a passionate objection from Stephen Guy, chairman of the West Derby Society, a community petition has been launched calling for the development to be rejected when it is considered by Liverpool Council’s planning committee. The 780-strong online petition said: “These buildings will be right in front of our beloved Ronald McDonald House, a place of respite for families with sick children in the hospital.
“West Derby infrastructure is already creaking at the seams, there are no doctors, dentists or school places available. Pollution is at an all time high.”
When the original plans were submitted for the old demolished Alder Hey site, almost 500 objections were lodged with the city council. The wrangle between the community and the hospital over Springfield Park has continued since a land exchange agreement with Liverpool Council made in 2012.
Almost eight years ago, the specialist children’s hospital opened its new healthcare campus on land within Springfield Park resulting in green space being lost in the community.
Alder Hey is obligated to return 9.4 hectares of land back to council ownership, with one phase already completed.
Earlier this year, Dame Jo Williams, chair of the Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust board, said she recognised it had been a “long and extended period of time” for the full park to be handed back to the community.
It is hoped the full park will be returned by the end of the year, with progress being made on the installation of a multi-use games area. The newsletter sent to homes in Knotty Ash by Step Places explained the new approach to the scheme.
It said: “Following discussions with Alder Hey NHS Trust, a portion of the site has been sold back to the NHS Trust, this portion of the site will be developed for their own use to meet local health service needs and requirements.” The flyer described the design changes as “minor.”
It added how 89 new trees would be planted under the revised plans “alongside many new plant and shrub species, providing biodiversity benefits.” A pair of mature trees on the site are to be preserved.
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