It looks very much as though all bets are off and the riders are back at the starting gate as far as the long promised Whipps Cross Hospital rebuild is concerned. Our thanks to Adrian Stannard for this account of the present situation.

From WF One Community

Sender: Adrian Stannard of A4W Organising Group (Hosted by Forest Radio)
Date: Wed 12/11/25

At last night's A4W meeting the question was asked about the

LBWF Local Plan

Most of the Local Plan has been approved but a few sites had to be reviewed and a consultation has just been completed so there may be some changes to a few sites. As far as I know Whipps is not one of them.

An outline Planning Application was submitted and approved on 13/12/22. Planning Consent expires within 3 years if work has not started. Despite the Planning Portal saying it expires in 2022, which I assume is an error, it will expire on 13/12/25. The objective of that was to show the Treasury that Bart's had a viable scheme and was ready to proceed. But as we all know the Treasury has greater priorities.

So at the end of this year a new application would have to be made, but as the new hospital is not expected until the end of this Local Plan timescale i.e. 2035 we can assume everything will have to start again later. My feeling is there will be at least 2 Local Elections in that period to say nothing of how many Prime Ministers so we can safely say a whole new scheme will need to be put forward around 2030. As we can't guess what is going to happen tomorrow let alone next year I don't see any point in worrying about it now.

It is conceivable Bart's could put up part of the site for sale and development, but from a planning point of view I doubt the planners would want the site developed piecemeal.

What is more important is the current hospital provides the service we all need and A4W continues to battle for that.

Adrian