New road opens to avoid long delays and congestion by hospital

A road has opened to ease congestion where traffic regularly causis delays near a busy hospital. Surrey[1] and Sussex Healthcare NHS[2] Trust (SASH) has opened a new access road to its East Surrey Hospital site, improving access patients and staff.

Following the pandemic, the hospital saw an influx of visitors and by December 2022, a total of 12,000 visitors' cars on average were coming to the site each week. To address the growing number of visitors, a new car park was built and opened last month.

The new car park has boosted the total number of spaces available for both staff and the public by more than 350, making it fit for purpose for years to come.

To accommodate the building of the new car park, the road to East Surrey Hospital from the Canada Drive entrance was temporarily closed. The closure of the road resulted in rush hour delays with only the one entrance from Canada Avenue being available to patients, staff and local residents to use.

The road takes people round the back of the hospital, past the new wards that are being built to increase capacity at the hospital, through to the main staff and visitor car parks.

It is hoped that the opening will see the traffic delays into the hospital improve. It will mean many visitors and staff coming from the Redhill[4] Aerodrome end and through Mason’s Bridge Road able to turn off into Canada Drive before the roundabout, where most of the traffic from Redhill, Reigate[5] and the A23 comes in.

Paul Simpson, deputy chief executive said : “By opening the new road into our site from the Canada drive entrance I hope to see some quick improvement to the traffic issues we have been seeing in recent months and the end of visitors queuing for long periods during the day. We will be monitoring how this works over the next few weeks before finalising our new site map and installing new signs.

“I would like to apologise for the queues and say a huge thank you to our patients, visitors and staff for your patience and consideration while these crucial building works took place. These works have given us hundreds more spaces for the public and staff to park to make accessing our hospital easier than ever.

“Looking forward, we will be looking to revise our transport plan as part of our Green Plan[6] this year. We are in talks with the Metrobus team, promoting the government’s “Help for Households” programme with Metrobus’ £2 cap in an effort to urge people more people to use public transport.”

Traffic congestion has been an ongoing issue for East Surrey Hospital due to the layout of Three Arch Road. Surrey County Council have consulted on the layout of Three Arch Road and are proposing a number of improvements. For further information, go here.[7][8]

References

  1. ^ Surrey (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  2. ^ NHS (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  3. ^ Two in hospital after stabbings at Surbiton hotel and garage with man arrested (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  4. ^ Redhill (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  5. ^ Reigate (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  6. ^ Green Plan (www.surreyandsussex.nhs.uk)
  7. ^ Surrey County Council (www.getsurrey.co.uk)
  8. ^ here. (www.surreycc.gov.uk)

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