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Cannock Chase car park near hospital to be expanded despite cash concerns

Plans to create more parking for Cannock Hospital patients have finally been given the green light.

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Cannock Chase District Council's Civic Centre car park, next to the district's hospital, will be expanded and two bungalows on the site demolished under the £450,000 plans.

The car park will boast 132 public spaces and 144 spaces for council staff when the work is finished. Currently there are 200 combined spaces at the car park.

The plans have been approved by planning bosses at the council despite being thrown out last year over concerns money for the expansion could be better used elsewhere.

It became the subject of a bitter political row with the ruling Labour group accusing the Conservatives of rejecting the plans for 'political reasons'.

The plans were provisionally approved earlier this year but got the final green light last week when the council changed the number of proposed spaces from 277 to 276.

Councillor George Adamson, the leader of the council, said: "I am pleased the plans have been approved and the car park will be a great asset for patients and the hospital.

"Very little has changed in the plans between this year and last year. They were only thrown out last year for political reasons. The Conservatives think we should use Beecroft Road but we think people should park as close the hospital as possible as Royal Wolverhampton Trust, which runs the hospital, move more services over."

However councillor Paul Snape, the Conservative leader on Cannock Chase District Council, maintains the Labour-backed scheme is still a 'waste of money'. He said: "My views are still the same, it is a waste of council money that they do not have. There is no guarantee that people would even use it.

"If the hospital want to use it as their overflow car park then they should put the money in, not the council.

"We have an under-used multi-story car park that could be redeveloped and it is only a short distance from the hospital.

"There is no difference between the application last year we rejected and the one approved this year, maybe one extra line drawn on the map. The difference is Labour have switched two of their members around as last time some of them could not vote which is why the proposal was defeated.

"The council have got no money, that is what they keep saying. They have to make these £1.6 million of cuts and make people redundant yet they can spend nearly £500,000 on a car park."

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