New medical centre for Whitchurch agreed
A new medical centre, community hub and supported living facilities are to be built in Whitchurch after Shropshire Council agreed to invest in the project as part of plans to regenerate the town.
Shropshire Council, Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and The Wrekin Housing Trust will now work together to regenerate and redevelop the Pauls Moss site into a hub of housing, healthcare and community activity.
Shropshire Council formally agreed to support the scheme at recent meetings of its cabinet and full council.
Work is expected to take around three years and be completed by 2022.
The project will be funded by Shropshire Council, The Wrekin Housing Trust, Homes England, NHS England, Shropshire CCG and the One Public Estate programme.
The Pauls Moss scheme will provide the Whitchurch area with modern primary health and care services, and bring together three existing GP practices into a single site, so that services can be developed which are fully integrated with specialist housing and other community services.
Accommodation
Working in partnership, Shropshire Council, Shropshire CCG, and The Wrekin Housing Trust have identified the opportunity to develop a new fit-for-purpose modern medical centre to cope with current demand and the expected growth in population of the town and surrounding area.
The Wrekin Housing Trust is proposing to build new specialist accommodation for people over 55 in the form of lifetime apartments and potentially a number of bungalows that all give lifestyle choices for the ageing population of Whitchurch and north Shropshire.
The Pauls Moss site is currently run down and has a mix of redundant buildings and some dated social housing units.
Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for corporate and commercial services, said: “This exciting and innovative project is brilliant news for Whitchurch and Whitchurch residents. It provides an opportunity to link the medical centre and housing with a community hub space that will enable local partners to provide a wide range of activities and services to local residents and patients.”
Dr Julian Povey, chair of Shropshire CCG and a GP, said: “This is a really exciting project that brings health and social care together to support patients and local people. It will become a real community asset by uniting local services on to a single, dedicated site with purpose-built facilities.”
