Residents in the dark over health scheme

CONCERNS have been raised that residents are being kept in the dark about the plans for a new £41/2m health centre in Bingham.

A new centre is needed because the current one at Eaton Place is outdated and struggling to cope with the number of patients.

Meetings have taken place between Greater Nottingham Lift (Local Improvement Finance Trust) the primary care trust, Bingham town and Rushcliffe borough councillors, and the county council for more than a year.

But a spokesman for Bingham’s pressure group, Community Concern, Mr Norman Hanson, said there had been no consultation with the public.

He said: “They are concerned about the future of the health provision considering the rapid expanding population. People have been coming to us wanting information.

“We understand there is a project but other than that we are completely lacking in information. That’s our difficulty.

“People in Bingham have been left in the dark. We just don’t know what’s happening. It’s a simple lack of communication.”

The chairman of the group, Mr Tim Chamberlin, wrote to the chief executive of the East Midlands Strategic Health Authority, Mrs Barbara Hakin, at the end of last month.

In the letter, Mr Chamberlin, asked if the project had been initiated, whether a site had been chosen, when it was due to start and a potential date for completion.

Mr Hanson said: “We are looking for some translucency of where things are at. When we get a response from that we will see where it leaves us.”

He said the best possible option would be to build the health centre on the current site, which it shares with the library, but that is unlikely to happen because of a £700,000 shortfall.

The county council, owner of the current site, decided it had no money to spend on the project, which would involve rebuilding the library on another site.

Mr Hanson said they still didn’t know if Warner’s Paddock, the last remaining green site in the centre of Bingham, was being looked at as a potential site.

Mr Gary Porter (42) of Woodpecker Close, Bingham, who has been leading a campaign to preserve the paddock on the corner of Long Acre and Grantham Road, contacted Lift by letter and telephone earlier this year but has had no response.

Mr Porter said he would write to them again in the next week and if he did not get a reply he would submit a request under the Freedom of Information Act.

“We cannot get any clear indication from the health authority,” he said.

“We just want some confirmation of what stage they are at.

“Are they wanting to get planning permission to develop on the paddock?

“There is nothing on the website which says where it will go. Nothing there about the reality of it or the timescales.

“From what the town council are saying they are not very forthcoming to them either. It’s not on.

“The public’s money is being spent on that project. They need to let us know what’s going on. They are accountable to us,” he said.

A fellow supporter of the campaign, Mr David Stevenson (43) of Elm Avenue, Bingham, wrote to Lift nearly two weeks ago after reading information about the Bingham project on its website, and has yet to receive a response.

He said: “It’s not giving information. It makes you ask more questions rather than answering them.”

No one was available for comment from the Nottinghamshire Primary Care Trust.