Third time unlucky: Paddington project is stalled yet again

Local authority planning officers have rejected plans for the troubled£800m Paddington Health Campus project in west London.

Westminster City Council have written to architects Terry Farrell and Partners saying that its 'master plan' for the project would result in 'extremely large and bulky buildings that would be out of character with the area and have a far-reaching and detrimental visual impact'.

Now Farrell's has been asked to revise its plans for a third time and are considering additional building work, which could drive the price higher than current estimates of£800m.

The project aims to bring together St Mary's Hospital, the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital and medical research departments from Imperial College onto one site straddling the Paddington basin leisure and residential complex on the Grand Union Canal.

The scheme ran into trouble in October 2002, when project director Eric Sorenson stepped down after admitting the plans had not taken account of 'consumerist criteria', which would require a 20 per cent increase in the scale of the campus.

Revised plans increased floor space and added more storeys.

But in June last year Westminster council said this would require a new planning application. At the same time, it was revealed that building inflation and the increase in size would mean the estimated price would rise from£360m to around£800m.

Now the council's director of planning and city development, Graham King, has told Farrell's that the revised plans are not satisfactory. Mr King reiterates that proposals to have hospital buildings on both sides of the canal 'still cause significant concern over the impact on the whole of the basin'.

In a statement the campus said the master plan proposes a new site configuration for the campus incorporating land north of the Grand Union Canal, owned by Paddington Development Corporation Ltd (PDCL).

A spokesman for the project said the additional costs would be minimal: 'While the plans for the scheme are ambitious when compared to current thinking and practice, they are absolutely deliverable.As part of its negotiations, the project team is working alongside Westminster city council to address the issues raised.

The outcome of will be incorporated into a revised masterplan and resubmitted.'

Mission Critical: what's in a name?

The Department of Health will not say whether ministers have given personal support to the Paddington project after being lobbied by the government agency responsible for public sector procurement.

In November last year a routine 'gateway review'of the progress of the project was carried out by the Office of Government Commerce, which examines all PFI projects.The review set out 22 'critical recommendations' for its success.

Recommendation one says: 'Work with OGC and with DH [Department of Health]/ Cabinet Office to get the project classified as a Mission Critical project embodying the concepts set out by Cabinet Office instructions for Mission Critical IT projects, including the appointment of a pro-active responsible minister.'

A Paddington project spokesman said he could not comment on the gateway review recommendations as they are confidential.

Neither he nor a spokesman for the DoH would confirm whether ministers had been approached.

But the DoH spokesman said the phrase 'Mission Critical'was not normally used by the DoH in the context of PFI projects and that it was 'unhelpful and misleading'.He added: 'The project board is currently revising its outline business case and is due to submit this case later this year.

'It would be inappropriate to comment further before the outline business case has been submitted.Any OBC is usually considered by the appropriate strategic health authority. If a case is particularly novel or contentious, then the DoH will also review it.'

A Cabinet Office spokesperson would not comment on whether a 'responsible minister' had been appointed.He said that while there was no specific list of Mission Critical projects the term was used unofficially within the Cabinet Office, to identify high-profile projects.