5:40am Friday 16th May 2008
By Benjamin Parkes
DETAILS of a new super-health centre for Trowbridge have been released by the Primary Care Trust.
The PCT has revealed details ahead of its board meeting on Tuesday, where members are expected to approve the project.
The news has not been welcomed by Trowbridge Cricket Club, which stands to lose half its facilities, half its adult teams and the whole if its youth service as a result.
The new Trowbridge Primary Care Centre is to be built on the grounds of the Trowbridge Community Hospital in Seymour Road, which will be demolished, save for the listed structures on the site.
The cricket club will lose its hospital cricket field, which is adjacent to the main pitch, and is rented to the club by the PCT.
On the hospital grounds will be a host of new health buildings as well as some residential housing, which has yet to be finalised.
In terms of medical facilities there will be a new surgery attached to the existing Adcroft Surgery, in Prospect Place, which will more than double its size.
A new Primary Care Centre will be housed in a separate building more than 3,000 sq metres in size, which will incorporate all the services transferred from Trowbridge Community Hospital and The Halve Health Centre in Trowbridge, when it is sold off.
In this building there will be a suite for other GPs to come in and offer surgeries.
It will also include a new pharmacy as well as dental services, complementary therapy, counselling and lifestyle management.
There will also be special areas for the new NHS neighbourhood teams as well as a school nurse and nursery nurse.
A community midwifery service will sit alongside an X-ray unit, minor injury unit, as well as podiatry, physiotherapy, family planning and sexual health services, leg ulcer clinic, drugs and alcohol service, continence clinic, smoking and obesity clinic, and space for mobile diagnostics.
There will be no hospital beds for maternity or inpatient use.
The PCT plans to sell off the community hospital site for £2.5m, the Halve Health Centre for £580,000 and the Trowbridge Cricket Club Hospital Pitch for a further £600,000.
Once sold to developers the resulting £3.68m windfall will be used to provide health services and pay the rent on the buildings.
Colin Popplett, vice president at Trowbridge Cricket Club, said: "We fully expect to be put on the nine-months mandatory notice for the hospital pitch following the meeting on Tuesday. The sad thing is this is the only free area in Trowbridge for kids to play on.
"The hospital ground is used by our third and fourth adult teams, all our youth teams and by local youth football teams in the winter. This is going to hit the club very hard."
© Copyright 2001-2010 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk