Healthcare centre in Market Weighton gets green light

IT IS the end of an eight-year wait for a new £3 million health centre in Market Weighton.

Controversial plans for the centre and 49 homes were approved at East Riding Council's planning meeting yesterday.

Subject to an agreement, which includes an on-site children's play space and a contribution towards the roundabout at the Holme Road junction with the A1079, work could start as soon as September.

Philip Lovel, managing director of developer Lovel Development, said: "We're very pleased. This development will have a major impact and delivers the long-awaited new health centre in the town."

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Dozens of residents were in County Hall to hear the decision.

Although no one was against a new health centre, some residents objected to the plans.

Protesters sent a petition with more than 230 signatures to East Riding Council, voicing concerns about the proposed Northgate Vale access road and a potential flooding risk with the new homes.

Mr Lovel said: "We've listened to people's issues and have tried to work hard to answer those concerns.

"We've got the go-ahead from the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Water and have been told our scheme won't add to the flooding risk but will actually reduce it."

It proved a tough decision for the planning committee, some of whom expressed concerns over the access road.

Councillor Tony Galbraith said: "We are in a dilemma here. Northgate Vale is totally inadequate as an access road. We would be within our rights to refuse it.

"But to refuse it could lead to the loss of the funding for the health centre altogether.

"Reluctantly, I give the priority to the health centre."

The developers told the Mail access for construction traffic to the development site will only be via Becklands Park Industrial Estate.

The deal means lorries and other heavy traffic travelling to and from the site will not need to use North- gate Vale.

The plans occupy part of the site covered by a planning application approved by East Riding Council in March 2010 for a health centre and 325 homes.

Among those objecting to the latest proposals were the other land owners of the original site, who wanted the whole area to be developed as a bigger project.

Speaking after the planning meeting, town GP Dr Clive Henderson, told the Mail he was relieved, though the delays had come at a cost.

He said they had lost £500,000 which had been raised by Macmillan and was going to be used for a palliative day care unit at the health centre. Their current centre could not accommodate this and, in the end, the funding was used elsewhere.

He said: "I'm relieved after an eight-year struggle we have permission and funding for a site. There will be an overwhelming benefit for the area.

"The funding has been approved by the Humber Cluster Board and it was specifically for this application.

"There was no guarantee we would have got funding ever again if this application did not get the go-ahead now.

"The health centre is vital. It will take services away from secondary care so people will not have to travel to York, Hull and Goole. It will be better care, closer to home."