FRUSTRATED residents held a tongue-in-cheek ‘celebration’ for their non-existent GP surgery three years after the planning application was approved.

NHS Property Services had been granted £1.7million to develop the new medical centre in Park Prewett Road, Rooksdown in 2013.

However, three years later there is still no sign of any construction work starting at the site, and residents wishing to see their doctor have been left with a temporary porter cabin, with cramped conditions and more than a month’s wait for an appointment.

Basingstoke’s MP Maria Miller met with local NHS chiefs on Friday to discuss why there are now further delays to the planned construction of the Rooksdown surgery.

Mrs Miller said: “Residents are right to be angry at the delay in starting work on a permanent GP surgery.

“Rooksdown residents have endured a catalogue of delays to essential services being established as a result of poor planning when the main estate was started more than 10 years ago.

“At my meeting with NHS Properties on Friday I was assured that the building contractor, new plans and financing were now in place."

She added: “With 10,000 houses planned to be built as part of the new local plan it is essential that new services like GP surgeries are in place alongside those new homes to ensure we learn the lessons of poor planning in the past.”

On Tuesday more than 40 residents, along with ward councillor, Cllr Simon Bound, braved the wind and rain to host a three-year anniversary ‘celebration’ outside the temporary fixture, with placards reading ‘Sick of waiting for Rooksdown surgery.’

Cllr Bound and Hampshire County Councillor for Basingstoke North West Cllr Stephan Reid even took a birthday cake down to the site as a sarcastic gesture.

Cllr Bound told The Gazette that when the application was first granted, there was a window for the work to be complete, but it has since passed.

He said: “We have other infrastructure which is coming into the area, and if they all want different compounds it is going to cause chaos in Rooksdown.

“We have even heard from the hospital thinking the surgery is closed as people have been going straight to A&E because they cannot get an appointment.

“At the moment we don’t even have a date as to when the work is going to start and with the application being extended we don’t want to be in the same situation in three years’ time.”

Michael Auerbach, 66, who has lived in Rooksdown for seven years said: “They have had issues recruiting GPs, as the working conditions aren’t ideal and it is not good for people who want to see a local GP if the doctors are changing all the time.

“There is a really good community being built here, that wants to have a local surgery to go into and not have to wait a month for an appointment.”
Chris Albery-Jones, 39, added: “My wife is a blue badge holder and it is so frustrating trying to get an appointment.

“It is no disrespect to the staff working there, as they are fantastic, it is just not the ideal situation not having a permanent surgery.”

A spokeswoman from the NHS Property Services said the original plan had expired and had to be resubmitted before any construction could take place.

She said: “Capital investment funding has been approved by NHS Property Services to develop a new £1.7 million medical centre for the Rooksdown practice at Park Prewett. We inherited this long-planned scheme and had to resubmit plans for building regulations approval as the original application had expired.

“Building control in Hampshire have now approved the project plans and we are currently finalising the construction contract and completing the formal lease arrangements with the tenants, so that building works can start in August 2016, with completion expected in June 2017.”