Medical centre plans ‘will erode’ village barrier and cause traffic ‘nightmare’
Mendip Vale Medical Practice hopes to build a doctor's surgery in Smallway. - Credit: Archant
Plans to build a doctor’s surgery between Congresbury and Yatton have been labelled ‘terrible’ by councillors, who fear the merging of the villages.
Mendip Vale Medical Practice’s plans for a two-storey surgery opposite Cadbury Garden Centre, in Smallway, were slated by Yatton Parish Council at its meeting on Monday.
The practice would replace the smaller surgeries in each village, but initial blueprints were criticised in the spring by Congresbury and Yatton’s parish councils, leading Mendip Vale to come forward with revised proposals which would see the building set further away from the road.
Earlier this year, Mendip Vale executive manager David Clark told the Mercury he believes relocation is necessary due to rising patient numbers, but a range of concerns have prompted parish councillors to call for the plans to be refused.
Cllr Christopher Jackson said: “I think it’s an absolutely terrible application, it always has been. This proposal is to put a medical centre in the middle of nowhere, and in the strategic gap, eroding the barrier between Congresbury and Yatton.
“No-one can get to it; the notion people are going to walk to it from Yatton and Congresbury is fanciful, they will drive.”
Cllr Peter Lomas criticised the proposed access to the site.
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He said: “Trying to get in and out of there is going to be a nightmare, and anyone turning right towards Smallway at 4.30pm on a Friday afternoon is going to be there a long time.
“It desperately needs an island or some sort of traffic lights to let people in and out.”
Cllr Robert Jenner questioned the need for a new surgery.
He said: “We have a surgery in Congresbury and we have a surgery in Yatton. They serve both communities. Putting one in the middle serves neither community.”
Yatton’s North Somerset councillor Jill Iles said the district authority’s planning committee will deliberate over the plans on September 12.
