PLANS for a £4.75million medical centre which will be based in Kington, near Presteigne, have been given the go-ahead despite a recommendation for refusal.
Herefordshire planners had compiled a report for a committee meeting on Wednesday, May 12, at Herefordshire Council where officers expressed their concerns. The report said the application site is poorly related to the town, with no obvious pedestrian links to the town centre, and that the site is poorly served by public transport.
Ricky Clarke, democratic services officer at Herefordshire council said: “It’s been approved contrary to officers reccomendation, subject to conditions to be agreed between the local ward members and the chairman.”
The transport manager in the original report said: ‘The need for a new surgery is not in question...
“There are, however, fundamental transport-related reasons for refusal, reflecting sustainability and accessibility arising from the location of the proposal.
“The proposed location is not patient-focussed, relying principally on the private motor car for access to the site.’
The conservation manager of the committee, has raised other concerns in the report and has said: ‘A development of this scale would be highly visually intrusive and in my view, impossible to assimilate into this rural, unsettled landscape context in any satisfactory way.’
The plans are going to be delegated to officers who put together the original report meaning that the case does not have to go back to the planning committee.
Plans also have to be approved by both Councillor Terry James and Councillor Roger Phillips as the proposed site borders their respective wards.
The medical centre would have a dental surgery, new walk-in services, facilities for mobile scanning mobile and a larger dispensary and will be located on Eardisley Road. This is the 17th site that Meads Practice have found since 2001, and needs to meet all the NHS criteria for the funding.
The NHS were initially hoping to have planning granted in April so that they can have the site completed by 2011.