... the saga continues.

Yes, that's Rochford's; or Foresthall park as it's now known, and it could be the location of the long promised health centre after all.  At a recent meeting between the Primary Care Trust and local interested parties chaired by your Parish Council leader Geoffrey Sell, the PCT announced that it had failed to agree terms with the owner of a central site it had been looking at for the last eighteen months.

There will be a meeting of the Parish Council to discuss the location of the health centre on Wednesday 21st July 2010 at 7.30pm.

Geoffrey explains the current situation:

For many residents of Stansted and surrounding villages their health care is met by the Doctors' practice located in St John’s Road. It has been recognised for many years that the building is unsuitable for the provision of medical facilities fit for the 21st century as the property is cramped and does not comply with disability discrimination legislation. The landlord of the property has also made it clear that he wants the practice to find alternative accommodation.

The question we now face is not 'do we need comprehensive medical facilities for our growing population' but where should they be located?

NHS West Essex Primary Care Trust, the body responsible for the delivery of our medical care, has had the task of finding suitable premises big enough to accommodate both the clinic currently at Crafton Green and the Doctors' surgery. Bigger premises will enable the practice to offer facilities such as blood tests for which patients currently have to travel to Herts & Essex Hospital in Bishop's Stortford. The Primary Care Trust also plans to offer the services of an NHS Dentist which, at the moment, the village lacks.

As part of the planning conditions for the development of Foresthall Park, Uttlesford District Council negotiated a Section 106 Agreement with the developers. This included the provision of land for a health centre.

The former Chief Executive of the Primary Care Trust attended a public meeting in May 2008 where he explained that long running negotiations for a site in Cambridge Road, Stansted, had not been fruitful. The Trust intended to develop the site at Foresthall Park. The announcement was met with considerable opposition from many residents who were concerned about the loss of medical facilities from a central village site. The majority of respondents to the Parish Plan questionnaire of last year also supported this view, so the Parish Council asked the PCT to look again at other central sites before they made their decision. This the PCT undertook and spent most of 2009 and the first six months of 2010 investigating a central site for the new health centre. However, at a recent meeting chaired by myself, the Chief Executive of the PCT explained that they had now drawn a line under negotiations for this site as they had failed to reach an agreement with the landowner.

The PCT has now been given a series of questions drawn up by the Parish Council to which they have been asked to respond by the 12th July. We want to satisfy ourselves that the PCT has fully evaluated all the options.

We understand the strong feelings about the location of the new health centre and we know that many residents are concerned about moving other key community facilities, such as St Mary’s Primary School, to Foresthall Park. However, the PCT has spent years looking for a central village health centre site and it's time that progress was made.

There will be a meeting of the Parish Council to discuss the location of the health centre on Wednesday 21st July 2010 at 7.30pm. The venue will be Stansted Day Centre, Crafton Green, where parishioners have the opportunity of addressing the Council in the public participation session at the start of the meeting.

We should stress that the Parish Council, although a consultee and a stakeholder, is not the decision maker. All we can do is reflect the views of the village as a whole and make representations to that effect.

When the PCT decides upon its location, with or without the Parish Council’s agreement, a planning application will have to be submitted to Uttlesford District Council.

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