New hospital approved for midlands
A new 99-bed hospital in Tullamore has got the green light from Offaly County Council.
John Flanagan Developments learned on February 3 last that their proposal for a 99-bed hospital, just off the bypass on its Wellwood site has been approved subject to three planning conditions.
Neither the decision documents or the planning conditions the proposal must comply with have yet been made available on the council's website, which confirmed the conditional permission today (Tuesday).
The local company previously said, if successful, it expected some 200 people to employed in construction of the new facility which could start in the summer of 2023 and “be open by the end of 2024,” according to the plans first lodged in December last year.
In July 2021, the company secured planning permission for a four-storey, 244-bed nursing home, 'step down' facility, rehabilitation and convalescence unit built on the same site, at Wellwood Health Park, Ardan/Puttaghan.
But last December, the Tullamore-based firm applied for planning permission for a change of use of this previously approved facility to a 99-bed private hospital on the 2.6 hectare parcel of land close to the Midlands Regional Hospital, Tullamore.
John Flanagan Developments Ltd originally planned a private hospital on this site back in 2007. Whilst work started on the structure of a building, the project did not proceed due to the global economic crash despite huge interest from leading medical operators from around Europe.
The company then sought permission for the nursing home project, which was designed to use the existing steel frame structure of the part-built planned private hospital project on the site, located just off the town’s N52 bypass.
“The proposal is identical in all respects to the nursing home proposed granted planning permission 18 months ago, with the exception that the new use proposed is a 99-bed hospital,” the developers stressed in the documents submitted in support of the hospital project which is proposed to cover 12,500 square metres of space in a four-storey premises.