An electrical fault which caused “major damage” was yesterday revealed to be the cause of long delays to the opening of a £10.7million hospital car park.
The Lady Helen Parking Centre at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary was forced to shut just one day after opening on October 25, and has remained closed since.
NHS Grampian initially refused to provide detailed information of the problem, simply blaming the closure on “electrical faults”.
But the Press and Journal has now obtained the information through a Freedom of Information request.
Documents show that on October 26 an “unforeseeable” electrical wiring fault occured in the main power distribution board, damaging controls for the lift and car park barrier, and causing “major damage” to the lighting controls.
Then on November 7, while the initial faults were being repaired, workers discovered that the car park electricity substation had also been affected by the blowout, with a fault message displayed on one of its three circuit breakers.
The health board is now waiting for the substation manufacturer to carry out a site visit to assess the damage and fix it.
An NHS Grampian spokeswoman could not give any details yesterday on when the inspection would take place and said the car park would remain closed.
The FOI document provided by the health board states: “Currently no guarantee can be provided that an unplanned power outage would not occur and effect the normal operation of the car park.
“NHS Grampian, the contractor and their supply chain are making every effort to expedite a speedy resolution to this issue and to seek improvement to this date.
“In the interest of public safety, NHS Grampian do not consider it appropriate to reopen the car park before the inspection has been undertaken by the specialist control panel engineers and until any remedial works required to the substation have been successfully concluded.”
Jamie Weir, from NHS Grampian patient group PACT, said: “At this time of year when we know that parking is difficult and there are a lot of patients and visitors to the hospital, the fact that the car park – which was supposed to be open months ago – still hasn’t is very sad.”