Proposals to create a purpose-built Health Hub in Holbeach look to have been shelved and houses could be put up where it was expected to go.
South Holland District Council had been working with the county’s Integrated Care Board (ICB), and its predecessor, about the plan for years.
But council leader Nick Worth has now been told by health officials that the scheme ‘would not present value for money’.
Holbeach has two GP surgeries and hundreds of new houses in the offing which means existing health services would be stretched to cover them all.
Ironically South Holland has access to more than £800,000 of Section 106 planning money and just £30,652 has been spent over the last five years.
Section 106 money comes from developers building new homes and contributes to public services including education and healthcare.
A meeting of Lincolnshire County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee were told last week that Section 106 money are aligned with GP practices.
The money must cover the full cost of any named project as the ICB may not be able to cover any short fall.
According to figures presented to the meeting, the county has almost £5m in funding currently available across all eight districts.
The exact location of the proposed new health hub in Holbeach wasn’t officially revealed, but it was expected to be built at the back of The Chequers, Park Road, on the site of the former JW Limming Warehouse.
The council bought that plot two years ago.
Now it is set to be subject to a sympathetic application for mews-type housing to tidy up the site.
Mr Worth said he has received a letter from the ICB which said the option of a new site or split site was not viable.
It says the Holbeach Medical Centre had ‘additional capacity,’ which had been identified, and that the Littlebury Medical Centre could be developed.
Mr Worth said the move would effectively be a ‘sticking plaster’.
He added that the town needed ‘proper’ investment from the NHS for the future, and the £827,000 already accrued would go a fair way towards that.
“The council did offer land opposite Holbeach Medical Centre for a new build to locate primary care services,” he said.
But he remains hopeful that the site will be redeveloped by the council in a way which would also create a pedestrian link to the town centre.
Currently pedestrians use Park Road, but a cut through would save time.
