'Overcrowded' GPs surgery gets permission to move

A stretched GPs surgery will be able to move to a new site close to a town's college.

Eastfield House in St John's Road, Newbury, has been given permission to move to a new site close to Newbury College by West Berkshire councillors.

It was first built 33 years ago to cater for 8,000 patients – but it now has 15,500 patients and that is expected to grow to 28,000 in the next decade.

Plans for development near the site 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.

Dr Anne Maloney, from the surgery, told West Berkshire Council's planning committee that the new site is "essential to addressing the needs of the population".

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

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

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

But despite the approval, the surgery is only through the first hurdle as it now has to ask the NHS for funds to build it.

The doctors said the funding and then the subsequent procurement process will take a year and building another year.

The surgery must also prove that surface water drainage can be adequately managed before the complex can be built.

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