Denbighshire approves £84.5m mental health unit

Ageing services working out of the Ablett Unit at Glan Clwyd Hospital can now be replaced by the 105,000 sq ft facility at the Rhuddlan Road site, two years after the previous plans were rejected.

Denbighshire County Council signed off on plans to build the new mental health unit at Glan Clwyd at a planning meeting yesterday, along with Castle Green’s application to build 45 homes off Gronant Road in Prestatyn.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board is behind the hospital development, which represents a significant investment of up to £84.5m funded through the Welsh Government.

The Powell Dobson Architects-designed mental health unit will reach three storeys at its tallest and deliver 59 patient beds across four distinct patient wards.

Proposals feature a range of support facilities including therapy rooms, social spaces, gyms, visitor facilities, and a café.

A total of 13 patient beds from the Older People’s Mental Health inpatient services at the Bryn Hesketh facility at Colwyn Bay will also be incorporated into the unit to consolidate the mental health service provision at the one site.

The existing mental health unit at Glan Clwyd was built on site in the 1990s and will be kept to accommodate administrative functions.

The county council refused the earlier outline application for the unit due to its location on the south-west corner of the hospital campus, arguing that the development would impact neighbouring homes.

In its approved application, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board has shifted the location of the facility from the south-west corner to an area used for parking in the north-west corner, further away from the residences.

A three-level multi-storey car park will be delivered  on part of an existing area of surface car parking which serves the hospital in the north-eastern corner of the site to replace the 233 parking spaces that will be lost as the result of the development.

Main contractor BAM Construction is aiming to start work on building the car park and hospital in spring 2024, subject to planning permission. The target completion date is 2026 for the project.

In addition to BAM and Powell Dobson, the project team includes planner Tetra Tech, engineer Ramboll, M&E engineers Arup and Lorne Stewart, and landscape architect Soltys Brewster.

To learn more about the plans, search for application number 40/2023/0473 on Denbighshire County Council’s planning portal.