I WOULD like to respond to Mr Pitch's letter in the Mercury regarding the proposed closure of Wrington and Churchill surgeries.

I WOULD like to respond to Mr Pitch's letter in the Mercury regarding the proposed closure of Wrington and Churchill surgeries.

The fact is that all the patients that use the surgery at Wrington will suffer if it closes - these total some 4,500, not just the 2,022 in Wrington village, but those from Redhill, Butcombe, Felton, Cleeve, etc. They will suffer by having to drive an extra five or six miles round trip; and the environment will suffer from the extra CO2 generated.

The two existing surgeries were purpose built (unlike many others in North Somerset) and are perfectly capable of being updated - and indeed, extended, to cope with greater clinical demands. There are at least 10 GP surgeries in North Somerset older than 30 years - are these all to be closed because they can't be updated? I think not.

The impression being given by some is that the only way to get more and better services is by building a single new supersurgery, which is rubbish. The two neighbouring practices, each with two surgeries, are both building extensions to update and provide new services - they are at Yatton and Banwell. If they can do it, so could the Wrington Vale practice.

Another fact - at present the PCT pays the practice �68,000 a year for rent - the proposed new supersurgery would cost �205,000 a year in rent, over three times as much. This would be ongoing, not a one-off payment. This seems an extravagant extra burden on taxpayers, even more so in a recession.

As for traffic, the fact is there would be a large increase in traffic - based on two doctors seeing five patients an hour each morning, there would be 80 extra car journeys each day (40 each way), all of which would go past the infant/primary school in Pudding Pie Lane - a situation described by one local mother in Langford as being 'a child waiting to be killed'.

PETER MAITLAND

High Street, Wrington