Shocking new figures reveal the spiralling costs of day-to-day maintenance on Liverpool's unused Royal hospital.
An ECHO investigation has uncovered exactly how much the public are paying for the much-delayed new Royal Liverpool Hospital.
A Freedom of Information request shows that over £3 million of taxpayers money was spent on the everyday running of the empty hospital between July and December last year.
A further £523,000 was spent in January this year. The total is equal to the yearly salary of 163 fully qualified nurses.
The Echo can also reveal that over £100,000 is being spent each month on electricity for the empty 23-ward hospital.
Dan Carden, MP for Liverpool Walton, reacted to the figures.
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He said: “People will be angry to learn about this. To think that money is being poured down the drain like this is an absolute travesty.
“The hospital should never have been PFI and a large portion of the blame for this situation lies with Carillion.
“We should be having an investigation into Carillion and how they were able to get away with it, and why Ministers weren’t taking action when they should have been.”
Construction of the new state-of-the-art hospital began in 2014 and was due to be completed in March 2017, but has been hit by a series of delays and structural issues.
The project was halted completely in February last year, following the collapse of construction giant Carillion.
The old Royal Liverpool Hospital, just yards away from the new site, has dealt with an increasing number of floods and electrical failures.
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Viewers of the BBC’s Hospital programme were left furious after it exposed the ‘crumbling’ state of the 40-year-old building and how it was affecting patient care and staff morale.
In a statement, a spokesperson for RLBUHT said: “There are a number of different costs associated with maintaining the new Royal Liverpool Hospital, including site security and on- going maintenance to ensure the future safety of the water system.
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“Whilst these costs are significant, funding is in place to cover them. The past 18 months has been a very challenging time for us and we remain extremely disappointed that we have not yet moved into our new hospital.
“Laing O’Rourke is currently finalising the proposed solutions regarding the external cladding on the building. Once this is concluded, then we will be able to update people on when the new Royal will be completed.”
Construction company Laing O'Rourke took over the project in November last year, and plan to complete the hospital by the end of 2020.
