The main entrance to the Royal Sussex has been closed today after high winds damaged the canopy, leading hospital bosses to cordon off the area as a precautionary measure.
The Barry Building entrance was closed from 2pm today, with work to make the area safe expected to take a couple of days.
In the meantime, pedestrians will be directed to the entrance on the west side of the Barry Building, opposite the fracture clinic and staff will be on hand to direct visitors to the hospital.
Richard Beard, who manages communications for the hospital redevelopment programme, told the hospital’s radio station, Coastway: “The canopy is about as old as the entrance itself, part of the original building in the hospital, and we have a regular maintenance regime around that.
“What we had today is quite high winds and we always take a look at structures like that afterwards and we had some concerns around it in terms of some guttering or something coming away.
“We decided to close the entrance for the safety of our patients, staff and visitors just until we can get some urgent safety work done over the next couple of days and then we’ll be reopening the main entrance there.
“We have to keep an eye on it, and we don’t want anyone be injured or even just surprised by having anything coming down from that canopy.
“We’ll be putting a scaffold around it with a platform underneath around it so if anything does come loose before we can get the necessary works done, it will just land on that and not cause any problems.
“There’s been no injuries, it’s purely precautionary.”
The Barry building, including the canopy, is due to come down when a new cancer centre is built there in 2020.
