Decision details

The Council with Hope House Surgery will deliver a new healthy living centre for Radstock at Waterloo Road. The facility will include a doctor's surgery, library, children's centre and training kitchen. It will be funded by NHS England & B&NES.

The Cabinet Members agree that:

1)  Having considered the report and the positive community benefits, as well as the objections received in response to the notices published under section 123 (2A) LGA 1972, authorises the disposal of the site known as land at Waterloo Road.

2)  That full approval is given to the gross budget of £1,770,000 required to deliver the council part of the project, subject to the NHS funding being confirmed in a commitment letter.

3)  That capital receipts from the sales of the site at Waterloo Road, the current Radstock Library and Children centre and the proceeds from the sale of 117 Newbridge Hill, together with CIL funding will be ring-fenced towards this project, as set out in the report

4)  Note, that the NHS funding relates to the non-Council health related uses, forms the majority of the funding package, and is expected to be confirmed before the end of July 2018. The NHS has confirmed that approval was awarded in principal in July but that a business case is to be submitted by Hope House and final confirmation of funding is expected in Autumn 2018.

The relocation of Hope House Surgery to a purpose built facility will provide an opportunity to improve patient services, address the inadequacies of the current accommodation, respond to the growing population and co-locate a range of complimentary community services in a single facility, sharing resources and management overheads.

A shared building encourages more efficient use of resources and sharing of costs and fits with the approach advocated by the Government Cabinet Office sponsored One Public estate programme.

Having the library in a shared building will enable it to be open for more days each week and for longer each day. This and its visibility at the front of the building, is likely to encourage new users of the service. The library space will be designed flexibly so it can also be used for other activities such as exercise groups or larger training sessions which will also enable income to be generated.

A site capacity study that was carried out in 2015 and considered a short list of 7 sites that had the ability to accommodate a building of the size required by Hope House Surgery. It looked at the constraints of each of the sites and concluded that the Waterloo Road site was the best option as it is in a fairly central location which is accessible and well connected to public transport. The current library and children’s centre sites were considered but ruled out as it would have meant closure of these services whilst the build took place.