“ONCE in a generation” plans to expand Royal Bournemouth Hospital have been granted planning permission.

Despite concern about a potential increase in congestion, BCP Council’s planning committee approved the major project, which will include a new six-storey extension, when it met on Thursday.

The decision has been welcomed by hospital chief executive Debbie Fleming who said it would unlock more than £250 million in funding for the NHS in Dorset with work starting as soon as next year.

Included within the scheme are new emergency, maternity and paediatric departments alongside a new multi-storey car park and pathology lab which would create 900 new jobs.

It was put forward as part of the Dorset clinical services review which will see the hospital become a major acute care centre and merged with Poole Hospital which will be transformed into a planned treatment hub.

Permission has already been granted for work to extend Poole Hospital but the Royal Bournemouth scheme was put to councillors for a decision.

A report published before they met on Thursday recommended that the application be approved after measures, including dedicated cycleways and a new direct bus route between the two hospitals, were agreed.

And despite concerns that this did not go far enough, planning permission was granted after councillors said the "great benefits" of improved treatment facilities outweighed these.

“It’s all very well putting cycleways around the site but people have got to get there,” councillor Stephen Bartlett said. “A bus service directly from Poole is probably a good thing but it doesn’t reach out to the vast area that the patients and visitors will be coming from.

“But the issue for me are whether the problems that we’ll face would be outweighed by the huge investment into the NHS and I believe that overall there will be a benefit to the community.”

Councillors voted 11 to three to grant outlined planning permission. Final details of the development will now have to be agreed before any work can start.

Speaking after the meeting, the hospital's chief executive, Debbie Fleming, welcomed the decision.

“We are delighted that we can now begin to realise this once in a generation development at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, which forms part of a wider £250 million investment in acute hospital services in Dorset,” she said.

“These facilities will provide state-of-the-art services in which the very best healthcare can be provided for the populations we serve, within improved working environments that will benefit patients and staff alike.

“We will now start to accelerate the programme of work, which also includes plans for a new theatre complex at Poole Hospital and the creation of a new Macmillan Unit at Christchurch Hospital, and anticipate that the overall programme of works across all three hospitals will complete by 2026.”

Dr Forbes Watson, the chairman of Dorset clinical commissioning group, and whose statement in support of the application was read out at the meeting, said the work would "greatly improve local provision for generations to come".

A spokesman for the hospital said they would work with the council to complete the final stages of the planning process but they said the NHS was “keen” that work begins in 2021 so that it can be finished by 2024.