The team at Dorset County Hospital is inviting you to have your say on what artwork should appear on its new multi-storey car park.

Metal facades will be added to three sides of the building and feature images of local landscapes and landmarks, a theme chosen by hospital staff to illustrate the hospital's catchment area.

Options include Maiden Castle, West Bay, Portland Bill, Durdle Door, Lulworth Cove and Corfe Castle.

Have your say here.

The three most popular scenes will be used to create images on perforated mental panels which will cover elevations of the multi-storey car park.

Work has begun onsite to build the hospital's multi-storey car park. This is the first phase of the development of the Dorchester site to free up land for expanding the emergency department and intensive care unit, as well as establishing an integrated care hub.

Work started on January 4 with the construction of a temporary car park on the site of the old Damers School playing field. The temporary car park will provide parking for hospital staff only.

Edging kerbs are being installed to the car park boundary and electrical services ducting has been laid to accommodate the lighting columns.

As part of the redevelopment, the hospital's main entrance from Williams Avenue is being widened to incorporate additional traffic lanes and an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) vehicle barrier system. Work here started on January 18.

The main entrance is currently two lanes but will be widened to four, initially to help construction traffic, but in the long run will link to the multi-storey car park.

As of the end of January, contractor Willmott Dixon started work on the children's centre car park, which will also have a barrier system and ANPR camera installed. Work is being carried out during the weekend to avoid disruption to the children's centre and Covid-19 vaccination centre.

Over the coming 12 weeks, the temporary car park will be finished, providing 160 spaces in place of the parking lost when construction on the new multi-storey car park begins. The new multi-storey car park will provide an additional 654 spaces, of which, 12 will be EV charging points, with future capacity for this to increase.

The main groundworks will be completed by the end of summer 2021, allowing the steel erection to take place and the phased installation of the parking floors. Once the steel erection is complete, the aluminium artwork façade installation can commence. While the aluminium artwork façade is going up, Willmott Dixon will complete the fit-out and remaining external works.

The project is due to be complete in summer 2022.

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