Laing O’Rourke has begun construction of the first new building linked to a £420M redevelopment of the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton.
This six storey temporary building will stand at the front of the hospital site, housing some of the clinical services that are being moved to make room for the main project, known as the ‘3Ts Redevelopment’.
Preparatory works will see Laing O’Rourke erect two new temporary buildings in total allowing for this ‘clinical decant’, which will take just over a year to complete.
Services being moved into the first building include nuclear medicine, physiotherapy outpatients and rheumatology outpatients.
The second building will be located towards the centre of the hospital and will accommodate three wards from the Jubilee Building which will be demolished early on in the main redevelopment. Work on this second building will start in the coming months.
During construction of these structures Laing O’Rourke and architect BDP will work with the Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust to develop designs for the main building. Construction work on this is expected to start start in early 2016.
Director of the ‘3Ts redevelopment’ Duane Passman said: “We are now moving into the clinical phase of our decant programme. This is when the redevelopment becomes real for most people, with the beginning of construction on site.
“We are pleased to be working with Laing O’Rourke on both these temporary buildings which are key to unlocking the space we need for the redevelopment to go ahead. This is an exciting time. What starts as the foundations for a temporary building will end with patients being treated in brand new, permanent facilities of the highest quality.”