PLANS for the transformation of Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital moved a crucial step forward yesterday.

Liverpool Council’s Planning Committee gave the go-ahead to a proposal that will see a new £288m state-of-the-art hospital built in its place.

The hospital would include new acute services and ward block, outpatient facilities, a multi-storey car park for 1,000 cars, and research facilities.

In effect the hospital would be rotated on a 90 degree angle, and former hospital land would be turned into a refurbished Springfield Park.

The plans will also see the hospital spend £375,000 on major improvements to the Bill Shankly and Walkers playing fields.

It is intended to ensure communities around the children’s hospital will continue to have sports facilities while work on the iconic health park is underway.

Currently, a major public consultation exercise is under way to ask local people and organisations to comment on whether the health park project should go ahead with a completion date of 2014, or an alternative proposal that will see the hospital gradually rebuilt.

Steve Ryan, Medical Director of Alder Hey NHS Trust said yesterday: “We now have a clear planning framework that will help us to deliver the Health Park vision.”