Work starts £100-million Hengrove Park regeneration

Work is about to start on the long-awaited regeneration scheme at Hengrove Park.

The city council hopes the project – including a new hospital, a skills academy and an Olympic-sized swimming pool – will transform peoples' lives in south Bristol.

The hospital, which residents have been promised for decades, is likely to get under way in December.

It could take until then for the government to accept the business case made by Bristol's Primary Care Trust (PCT) for the £50-million funding.

The £100m-plus first phase of the park's regeneration will start with £28m of new infrastructure, including an access road off Whitchurch Lane, improvements to Whitchurch Lane and the Hartcliffe roundabout.

There will be a new bus terminal as well as the provision of gas, electricity, phone and internet services to the site.

Some of the ground for this work will probably start being cleared next week.

Phase two, including hundreds of new homes, will come later.

The PCT, which commissions health services locally, is aiming to open the community hospital in early 2010.

It had been initially hoped work would be finished by autumn next year.

Before construction work can start, the PCT needs final approval from the government.

Finishing touches are being made to the hospital's business case, which will detail the services it will offer, before it is submitted to the Department of Health.

Ministers are expected to spend up to three months scrutinising the plan before releasing the funds.

Hospital project director Ben Bennett said: "We are aiming to submit the business case to the Department of Health, the PCT board and the board of NHS South West by the first week of September."

The first phase of Hengrove Park's regeneration will include a so-called "healthplex" leisure centre linked to the hospital, a skills academy and the headquarters of a major employer, probably Computershare, which would move from its present offices on Bedminster Down.

Millions of pounds of public money is being pumped into the scheme, providing design services and infrastructure.

The city council is putting in £7.5m. The money comes from a variety of sources, including land and asset sales, borrowing and planning agreements with developers.

The ruling Labour cabinet has also set aside a further £2.5m for "non-infrastructure" spending, such as kick-starting new bus links to Hengrove Park.

Meanwhile, the government is putting a further £7.5m into the scheme's infrastructure.

This will come from its national "growth points" fund.

The South West Regional Development Agency will put in an extra £8.5m, with the rest of the money needed is coming from sales of council-owned land to the developers of the hospital and academy.

Like the hospital, the academy was granted planning consent in March.

The construction plans are now being finalised and it is hoped to start work this autumn, with completion at the end of next year or beginning of 2010.

The leisure centre, with its Olympic pool – the biggest public swimming pool in the South West – is expected to open by autumn 2010.