Thousands of daffodil bulbs have been planted along the front of the future Cambridge Children's Hospital site.
A team of volunteers had a blooming marvellous day planting sack loads of daffodil bulbs along the front of the future Cambridge Children’s Hospital site last Friday (November 29th). The flowers will bring some much-needed spring colour to the 80-metre stretch of verge opposite the Rosie Hospital on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. This comes just a month after children and young people visited the area to celebrate their supersized photos on the new hoardings which had been put up along the Robinson Way site.
Cambridge Children’s Hospital will be the first specialist children’s hospital for the East of England, the only region in the country without one. It will be unique in fully integrating mental and physical healthcare under one roof, alongside world-leading research into childhood disease, diagnosis and treatment.
Head to Toe Charity, one of the project’s charitable partner organisations, alongside Addenbrooke’s Charitable Trust, provided the people power through their corporate volunteers. The team from Gateley Smithers Purslow, a multi-disciplinary surveying, engineering and architecture consultancy with an office base in Duxford, worked tirelessly to get as many bulbs as possible into the ground.
Head to Toe Charity is passionate about the power of therapeutic horticulture, using nature’s capacity to boost our mental and physical health. Getting thousands of bulbs in the ground is no mean feat, but our volunteers from Gateley Smithers Purslow gave it their all. We are so grateful to them for giving up their time to support us.
Hannah Wysocki, Head to Toe Charity lead
Cambridge Children’s Hospital Deputy Project Director Chris McNicholas, and other members of the project team, also came down to get their hands dirty. Some had forgotten their gardening boots, so were tasked with making tea and handing out mince pies!
One day Cambridge Children’s Hospital will stand proudly alongside many other incredible organisations already established on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. While it’s a little time until our hospital is built, we want to be good neighbours now. We hope, come Spring, the daffodils will brighten up people’s days.
Chris McNicholas, Deputy Project Director, Cambridge Children's Hospital
Cambridge Children’s Hospital is a partnership between Cambridge University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of Cambridge. It will have 166 beds, 7 theatres and 6 research centres, along with plentiful outdoor space on all levels; child-centred therapeutic areas; and a hospital school.
The development of the plans have fully involved children, young people, parents, carers and staff from the start. The project has two youth forums, a parent group and seven parent advocates who work closely with the team.
The hospital’s outline business case was fully signed off by the government in August this year. Work is underway on the detailed process to appoint a contractor. Construction is expected to be complete in 2029.
Find out more about the project at www.cambridgechildrens.org.uk