A hospital has been given permission to create hundreds of extra parking spaces after patient numbers have rocketed.

KIMS hospital, next to Newnham Court retail park in Maidstone, has seen an almost six-fold increase in patients and these figures are expected to continue to rise.

The hospital saw 21,420 outpatients in 2015. By 2023, that number had risen to 127,437.

The number of in-patients and daycare cases has also rocketed.

When planning permission was granted for the hospital in 2008, it was anticipated that 25% of the procedures carried out there would be for the NHS. But now, NHS services account for more than 40% of the total provision.

Staff numbers have also grown, from 109 in 2014 to 496 in 2023, plus 276 contractual staff working on the site.

Along with this growth has come a pressure on parking spaces. The hospital, which opened in April 2014, has 380 spaces already. But with patient numbers expected to grow by a further 15% this year, and staff numbers by a further 10%, it needs more room.

A planning application for a new 229-space car park has now been approved by Maidstone council.

Permission has been granted following a delay due to a dispute over the number of electric vehicle (EV) charging points in the new car park.

Back in September last year, planning officers were about to bring the planning application to the planning committee for approval but with a condition that would have required the hospital to provide active EV charging stations for 50% of the spaces, or 115 bays.

They also wanted passive EV charging on the rest of the spaces - when cables are laid so a charging pod can be easily added at a later stage.

But KIMS resolutely refused to accept the condition, declaring it “unreasonable” and saying it would add £1 million to the cost of constructing the car park.

The application which has now been approved requires only 12 EV charging points to be installed. And those will be only at 7kW charging speed, instead of the 22kW that Maidstone had at first asked for.

During the application process, highways authority Kent County Council pointed out that with 380 existing spaces, KIMS has already exceeded its guidance on parking provision for hospitals, which require it to have 296 spaces. It is now going to end up with 609 spaces.

However, it seems hospitals seldom have enough parking. Both Maidstone Hospital and the Tunbridge Wells Hospital at Pembury have recently introduced an off-site park-and-ride service in an attempt to alleviate parking problems there.

Details of the KIMS application can be found on the Maidstone Council website. Look for application number 24/500175.

Find out about planning applications that affect you at the Public Notice Portal.

Access to the car park will be from a new service road which is being constructed by Kent County Council as part of wider improvements to the links between the medical campus where the hospital is located and Junction 7 of the M20. There will be a second access from Newnham Court Shopping Village.