The 356-space facility, located adjacent to the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary (RAEI), offers expanded parking capacity and electric vehicle charging as part of wider improvements across the Wrightington, Wigan, and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (WWL).
The car park officially opened on Friday, January 16.
Mary Fleming, chief executive at WWL, said: “Car parking is an important part of our patient and visitor experience, and we recognise that struggling to park can be frustrating and worrying for our patients when they are attending our sites for a healthcare appointment or to visit a loved one.
“We are delighted that we can now open this long-awaited facility to patients, visitors and staff as this development has been very much needed for quite some time.
“I would like to thank our community and residents who gave us some valuable feedback during the engagement period, and for their support during the construction work.”
The new multi-storey car park includes 21 disabled spaces, 20 electric vehicle charging points, and a safe and secure parking system.
It also incorporates external cladding to reduce light spill, supporting the Trust’s progress to become Net Zero.
In addition to patient and visitor parking, the development includes 64 extra surface spaces for staff, bringing the total increase in capacity to 420 spaces.
Jonathan Houlston, CEO at noviniti, WWL’s appointed developer for the project, said: “It has been a great pleasure for noviniti to work with WWL and GOLDBECK Construction to deliver the new 356-space multi-storey car park at Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.
“This is a significant project for the Trust and will support them in improving the patient and visitor experience at the hospital with a greatly improved parking provision.
“We would like to thank all involved in the delivery of this exceptional project.”
Around 60 more parking spaces have already been created for the public at the Trust’s Leigh Infirmary site.
New card payment machines are available at all sites to enable both cash and card payment for car parking.
Tabitha Gardner, chief finance officer at WWL, said: “We hope this fantastic new facility will greatly improve the experience of visiting our sites.
“I would also like to thank our incredible Estates & Facilities teams who have worked so hard alongside our partners to complete this development in just under a year.”