£84.5m Denbighshire mental health unit approved

A new £84.5m mental health care unit at a North Wales hospital has been signed off by Denbighshire planners.The adult and older persons mental health unit and a multi-storey car park will be constructed at Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan near Rhyl.It will replace the existing Ablett Unit facility, which will be re-purposed to include administrative and medical record spaces to “support the delivery of mental health services across North Wales”.Facilities to be included in the new part two-storey and part three-storey 59-bed hospital building unit are two adult acute wards, older persons functional and dementia wards, therapies and administrative and staff spaces. There will also be a pharmacy, ECT suite, 136 suite and assessment suite.Also lined up is a new multi-storey car park, which the application said would provide a net gain of 16 spaces. It will replace the loss of 233 parking spaces resulting from the development.Previously, outline plans for the unit had been refused by Denbighshire County Council due to its location on the south-western corner of the hospital campus. Planners cited amenity concerns associated to developing a plot which bounded neighbouring residential properties.The latest proposals by Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board are said to have “comprehensively addressed the previous concerns”, through relocating the new building to a different plot in the north-western corner of the hospital site.Now the county council has granted permission for the plans, subject to conditions, in line with a recommendation in an officer’s report.The project has been awarded to construction company BAM under the NHS Building for Wales framework, NHS Wales’ construction procurement and delivery frameworks for major capital projects with construction costs in excess of £4m.Construction is presently expected to begin in 2024 and complete in 2026.The design partners for the scheme are architect, Powell Dobson; structural engineer, Ramboll; M&E engineer, Arup, and MEP installer, Lorne Stewart. Gleeds will provide project management and cost adviser services to the BCU Health Board.