Anyone with an appointment at Epsom Hospital will know it’s a nightmare to park.

At a recent meeting of the Health Liaison Panel of Epsom & Ewell Borough Council, Residents Association Councillor Liz Frost asked Epsom & St Helier NHS trust’s  managing director, James Blythe, for an update on the proposed multistorey car park. This had received planning permission back in December but there were no signs of any building work. Cars continually queued to access the car park making patients late for their appointments and blocking the Dorking Road.

Mr Blythe said that work should start in the autumn, and that options being looked at to minimise disruption during the nine-month build included possible park and ride schemes and using town centre car parks.

Saying he would bring back a plan later in the year for how the project would be handled, Mr Blythe also said the “flip side” was parking should be “substantially better once it’s built”.

He added: “We’re hoping that by [building the new car park] we will prevent some of the build-up of traffic from backing up into the town centre, which has sadly been a feature of the hospital for the last few years.”

There was also an update, of sorts, on the new Sutton hospital. Readers will recall from previous T&PR eNEWS articles that a national programme was announced in 2020 to deliver 40 hospitals by 2030, with Epsom and St Helier one of eight “pathfinder” hospitals due to be at the top of the list.

Mr Blythe told the meeting that there were “quite intense discussions” going on at government level about the programme and how to take it forward. He said, “This has sort of now become the HS2 of hospitals. Let’s think about how we do this as a single scheme. Let’s think about how we do this consistently, how we procure consistently, how we design consistently.”

Watch this space but don’t hold your breath!