COSTS for a replacement roof at the Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend have been estimated to be worth around £20 million pounds.
The figure was revealed at a meeting held by Bridgend County Borough Council on October 23, where the chief executive of Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, Paul Mears, gave a presentation to members about recent disruptions at the site.
It came after the health board declared a critical incident at the hospital earlier this month when the results of a survey revealed extensive damage to the roof, forcing patients to be moved and causing an impact on the hospital’s operations.
Speaking at the meeting CEO Mears described how the roof was found to be degraded after an intrusive survey, with roofing batons rotted and completely disintegrated in some places, leaving around 10,000 square metres of roofing “completely compromised”.
He added that negotiations were now underway to finalise a contract for the work to be carried out at the site, which would hopefully see a phased completion starting in November of 2024 and finishing by the summer of 2025.
Following questions from members of Bridgend Council, the chief executive also apologised for the disruption that had been caused to both staff and patients in the area saying: “I would very much be happy to apologise to staff who’ve had a lot of disruption to deal with on a daily basis, the patients and their families who’ve been disrupted, and also the wider community who have clearly been impacted.”
It was also revealed in the meeting that a previous survey that had been carried out on the roof in 2019 had showed “significant risk”with its concrete tiles reaching the end of their life.
Councillor Ian Spiller said: “If you’ve had a report done in 2019 which highlights a significant risk, surely you plan for this in future budgets and surely if you know that there’s a problem you do everything you can to mitigate it.”
The chief executive responded by saying that with only around £8 million worth of capitol allocation across all of its facilities in the health board area each year, and a £40 million backlog of maintenance issues at the Princess of Wales Hospital alone, priorities of how to use resources had to be made.
It was also noted that the health board was now speaking with Welsh Government for funding towards the estimated £20 million needed to carry out the full roof replacement.
