Ramsay Health Care, owner of Greenslopes Private Hospital, has failed in its bid to stop a medical centre and consulting suites being built across the street.
However, the new development will be subject to conditions to protect the hospital’s interests and ensure the centre is integrated in the community.
Brisbane City Council last year approved a development application for a three-story centre on a corner block in Ramsay Street at Greenslopes.
An artist’s impression of the medical centre planned for Hunter Street in Greenslopes, opposite the private hospital.
Having already voiced its opposition, Ramsay took its objections to the Planning and Environment Court, where it was acknowledged Greenslopes is Queensland’s largest private hospital.
However, Judge Amanda McDonnell rejected Ramsay’s claim the council had failed in its duty to ensure the proposed centre was “complementary” to the hospital, as required under the City Plan, and would be a positive outcome from a town planning, economic and medical perspective.
“I do not accept that to be ‘complementary’, development should not compete with, or duplicate medical activities at, the Greenslopes Private Hospital,” McDonnell found.
“(The City Plan) requires the ‘mix of centre and community activities’ be complementary to the Greenslopes Private Hospital. It is not about individual uses within the Greenslopes Private Hospital. This might be viewed differently if the services offered by the Greenslopes Private Hospital were impacted such that they might close. This would be a disbenefit to the community. However, that was not the evidence.”