Morgan Sindall Construction has just completed the first phase of a project that will pave the way for a significant and much-needed modernisation of North Manchester General Hospital. Place North West went to have a look around.
Many of the country’s hospitals are in need of drastic modernisation to meet to the needs of staff and patients, both now and in the future. One of the biggest issues that needs addressing is how to manage car movements on site.
Thousands of people use hospitals like North Manchester General every week, so creating an efficient place to leave their cars is vital, not only for the safe running of the hospital but to reduce the impact on surrounding streets.
The car park Morgan Sindall Construction has just completed – part of a £36.5m of enabling works – provides somewhere for people to park while also unlocking the next phases of a plan to completely overhaul the ageing 67-acre Crumpsall hospital.
A masterplan for the scheme was approved in 2021 and proposes transforming the hospital into a healthy living campus, replacing many of the old buildings and delivering modern facilities for patients and the local community.
“It has been a privilege for our team to deliver this important component in trust’s inspiring vision for its estate,” said Shaun Jones, Greater Manchester area director for Morgan Sindall Construction.
“In the course of our time on site, we have focussed on ensuring exceptional quality for these new facilities while also using our expertise to work with the local community in order to deliver social and economic change.”
He added: “These works are the key to unlocking the wider masterplan for the hospital estate and we’re immensely proud to have contributed to a project which will be of huge significance for North Manchester for decades to come.”
While Morgan Sindall’s 964-space car park is just the beginning of a huge regeneration project, it has also delivered significant social value.
Some highlights include:
66 job starts
52 apprenticeships undertaken
33 work experience placements completed
400 people supported on their pathway into employment
2,005 young people engaged through educational activities
£18.2m spent with local businesses
£23,000 shared with local community projects and causes
99 hours spent by Morgan Sindall’s team volunteering in the local community
“This is so much more than just a car park,” said Michelle Humphreys director of strategic projects at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.
“It is one step closer to unlocking our vision to create a transformational development which will bring about generational change for the North Manchester community by creating new jobs, promoting healthy lifestyles, developing skills, and contributing to a zero-carbon environment for the benefit of the local neighbourhood and beyond.”
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Hospitals are very busy places. One of the biggest challenges that they face is finding somewhere to put all the cars. Many hospitals like this one behind me, North Manchester General Hospital, are in need of drastic modernization. These are complex and very important projects. So where do you start?
The car park, of course, I’m Dan Whelan senior reportor for Place North West and I’m here today to speak to Morgan Sindall Construction and the team behind this project to find out why it is much more than just a car park. Michelle, tell us what this project, this car park where we
Are right now does for the wider hospital? Yeah, I think there’s three things really for us. Of course, firstly, fundamentally, it provides safe, accessible parking for our staff and patients. Staff and patients will know that they can come in, get their spot and get to work,
Get their appointments, taking some of the stress out of their day to day use of the hospital. So that’s amazing. It’s got electric vehicle charging, it’s got an amazing cycle hub here with showers, so generally just a much better experience when people come into the hospital. I think secondly, what we’ve
Achieved in terms of social value with Morgan Sindall, that’s really paved the way I think so I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done with local people in terms of training and employment opportunities. The Knowledge Quad that we’ve had set up over the past year and a half has really provided some
Great opportunity. So that’s really important to us. And then thirdly, of course, in terms of the wider master plan, and then the new hospital it is a huge step forward in terms of creating the new build site that ready for the new North Manchester.
So this project unlocks the wider masterplan doesn’t it? It allows you to get on site and get cracking. Tell us a little bit about what you’re trying to achieve with that masterplan. Yeah, absolutely. The masterplan was approved in 2021. We’ve got full consensus and partnership support for that from city
Council from Greater Manchester Mental Health Trust, and all our partners across the city. It’s really about modern new healthcare facilities for North Manchester. We have a Victorian hospital here, which is in desperate need of, of upgrading. So Pete, tell us a little bit about your involvement in this project.
So on this project, Hive Projects have been project managers under the contract for the delivery of this but also the key client right for ongoing engagement with all the stakeholders on site. Yeah, and I’d imagine there’s quite a lot, you’ve got the
Contracts, you’ve got the trust you guys are involved. Tell us a bit about that collaboration. Yeah, so on a live hospital site is quite complex. We’ve got deliveries coming in, we’ve got a live construction site. But exactly as you say, we’ve got a base hospital site. And that’s
Key. That’s the number one priority to maintain and keep that operational keep cars as little disruption as possible. can be generated through a scheme. Tell us about how that’s gone in this particular project. So with the social value, obviously, there’s contractual requirements within social value. We have a list of
Requirements for the local spend, engagement with education, employment, apprenticeships etc. What’s been really good on this project is how it’s been prioritised throughout the day to day discussion. So every meeting, we’re talking about the social social value the targets and where we obviously with the target, so it just keeps it at
The forefront of everyone’s mind. It’s not something a tick box that sometimes you get on these projects In terms of the challenges of this kind of project, because this is not just a field where you’re building an industrial unit, for example, this is a live hospital environment. Lots
Going on here. How have you found those those challenges? The biggest challenge is obviously working in a live of hospital environment. And all of the logistical challenges that that brings, you know, these change, if not on a weekly, daily, but sometimes hourly basis. We’ve had to adapt and be
Quite agile, really, when we’ve been working through it. Some of the demolition that we undertook was quite substantial, quite involved. In some parts, we were working literally metres away from live operating theatres. So that certainly posed a challenge. The other one is in estates of this sort of age, is
Understanding the infrastructure. Because the buildings that were demolished must be nearly 100 years old. So all the infrastructure that serves it, there’s no records. So you were almost reinventing the wheel and really designing on the hoof really, as our as our teams demolished it. I’d say
They’re the biggest challenges that we’ve posed all the way through. In terms of this project, what what does it do for the wider hospital? What impact will it have on patients and staff going forward? I think for anybody that has tried to park at North
Manchester, as I did quite regularly, and it was a real pain. So the obvious one is we’ve got a brand spanking new, nearly 1,000-space car park that people can use, which which adds to the whole, the whole sort of patient experience really. I
Think some people from the trust would tell you if they didn’t mention earlier, it’s been a bit trying at times for people to park. So that’s the big tick. But also for us, I think we leave a lasting and lasting legacy through our sort of whole
Social value USP that we certainly see as a selling point for us. So we put something back into the local community as well. And this is, you know, one part of a massive project that’s underway here at the hospital. How exciting is that, you know, to be able to watch that going forward,
Really exciting. And you know, hopefully we’ve demonstrated what we can do. Hopefully it demonstrates our capability moving forward on the wider masterplan here.