Newbury College site approved for new Eastfield House surgery

The new GP surgery at Newbury College has been approved.

The process was described as ‘labrinthine’ - with council planners trying to stitch the impact of the scheme into the huge and varied development plans for the area, which will see the population there more than double.

Those plans include 1,200 new homes at Sandleford, another 75 at Mayfield Point, to the south of where a new Aldi is planned, plus a large care home next door.

The Eastfield House surgery managers have been jumping through complex administrative hoops to solve the problem.

They have not been able to submit a funding case for the surgery to the NHS - it is an NHS practice - because in order to do so, they have to have full planning permission.

Doctors from Eastfield House said the new site had been designed to accommodate a doubling in the local catchment population in the next decade.

Dr Anne Maloney from the surgery told the WBC planning committee that the new site was "essential to addressing the needs of the population".

She said the current site was designed for 8,000 patients and four GPs.

“That number has doubled, and we have 10 GPs and we are projected to double again in another 10 years," she added.

"The current building is undersized. We have 25 clinical staff and only 13 consulting rooms.

"There is overcrowding in the waiting room, and only 10 parking spaces, and a single toilet.”

She explained that the surgery would have to close its patient list if the application was turned down, leading to patients having to travel to Reading.

But despite the approval, they are only through the first hurdle to get the new place built as now they have to ask the NHS for the cash.

The doctors said that the funding and then subsequent procurement process would take another year. And construction another year on from that.

But the surgery still needs to prove that surface water drainage can be adequately managed, so the road ahead is still not clear.

There were still questions raised about the number of parking spaces being adequate at the new site.

“Only 14 staff car parking spaces for 40/50 staff is not enough,” put ward councillor David Marsh.

“And everyone goes by car to the doctors. What about the existing patients who don’t drive? More buses need to run up there. And let’s have seating at the bus stops.”

He was told that only around 24 staff would be there each day and 48 patients at any one time, and with 72 spaces in the main car park, staff overflow goes there.

Overall, the council highways team said it should not increase traffic in Newbury, adding that while it is further from the town centre it is nearer to the population it serves.

They said within a few years there will be another access from the Sandleford development and admitted there was a disadvantage of having only one access off the A339 as traffic will have to go down and back via The Swan roundabout.