From: Jo Lewis

Hi, I cannot believe that the village of Wrington could very soon be without a doctor’s surgery! Unless the public transport system has changed dramatically since I was born and bred in the village, a fair few moons ago, I can’t imagine how villagers, unable to drive for whatever reason, will be able to have access to a doctor when needed. Will the new surgery doctors be taking on more home visits? In these times of congested roads and environmental issues associated with transport (not to mention recession) it is pure madness, surely, for people to have to travel for basic health needs. I would have thought that the last thing a person needs when feeling unwell is to have to travel ‘far and wide’.

I feel for those villagers who are more than happy with the services provided and who wish for the surgery to remain open. Bigger and better is not always the best! I feel blessed that I have a choice of three local surgeries near to where I live on the outskirts of Plymouth – all within walking distance and on bus routes for those less fortunate than I. Village life has changed and is continuing to change; I feel this proposal could be the worst change of all.

I hope you don’t mind me having my say but I still feel connected to the village, especially as my mother and other close relations still live there?

I will be interested to read further correspondence regarding this matter.

Of course, I would still like the surgery to stay if at all possible, but I now feel that the place I was asking to set up could be possibly associated with the new surgery plans, and I would rather have a surgery in the proposed site than travel to Weston or Bristol as I'm so often asked to do with my current illness.

Please ask yourselves the reason why you want Wrington surgery to stay, and please try not to give Dr Hooper a hard time. He served the village well for many years and is a very good doctor.

I've probably upset a few people by writing this letter, and I'm so sorry for that as it's not my intention to do so as, like I said, I was initially dead against the surgery closure like most of you, and I'm not a foreign body in Wrington who moved there a few years ago and trying to change village life.

I have lived in Wrington all my life and I'm not a youngster either.

At a meeting of North Somerset’s Health Overview Service Panel (HOSP) on Thursday, August 27 objectors to the proposal to close Wrington and Churchill surgeries and build a much bigger surgery on a new site in Pudding Pie Lane, Churchill/Langford won more time for consultation.

A press release issued by NHS North Somerset on September 3 states that the formal consultation will not now start until November and will then run for four months.

One of SOS’s complaints is that until now (mid September) there has been no consultation worthy of the name on a major change in doctor (GP) services which could set the pattern for the next 20 years or more. NHS North Somerset’s announcement is therefore welcome but time remains short.

More than 600 people have signed a petition urging that the Wrington surgery be kept open.

Wrington Vale Medical Practice (WVMP) says a new surgery would allow them to offer more services. SOS would welcome more services but not at the expense of the closure of either the existing Wrington or Churchill sites.

The loss of the Wrington surgery would be a serious blow to the significant number of Wrington residents registered at Wrington. They would have to travel by car to appointments and there would be an increase in mileage for the remainder of Wrington registered patients who live in Redhill, Butcombe etc.

At a stroke it would put a distance between doctors and patients which cannot be desirable. SOS is conscious that many patients already have to travel by car to the existing Wrington and Churchill surgeries, but adding, unnecessarily, to that number will not improve ease of access to GPs and the extra car miles can only damage the health of the environment.

The loss of the surgery would also damage the general economic health of Wrington village as fewer people would visit. The survival of the much-valued chemist would be called into question.

In addition, the proposed new surgery would be on a Greenfield site, taking prime agricultural land outside the Churchill village fence, and would mean a significant increase in traffic passing the Churchill Primary School in Pudding Pie Lane.

There is another way. Two neighbouring practices, Wavering Down (Winscombe & Banwell) and Yeo Vale (Congresbury & Yatton), are both two- site practices, and plan to stick with this arrangement while improving services: they feel it serves their patients best.

Time is short but at least now there is some time available for serious consultation. SOS believes the two-site model for a GP practice in a rural area has self evident advantages. If now is the time to renew the WVMP, we should not be throwing these advantages away, but building on the strengths of the two-site practice and looking at other ways of providing more services for patients.

Shared spaces have been successfully implemented in residential accessways that serve a small number of dwellings, e.g. Old Station Close, Alburys and the established Church Walk. But this is due to the fact that traffic speeds are very low, the roads are culs-de-sac and the drivers are very familiar with the conditions.

However, the four Class 3 through roads that serve the village, are, in my view generally unsuitable for space sharing.This is due to the volume and speed of traffic together with associated on-street parking. The pedestrian would have no defined rights of passage and would become the vulnerable stranger amidst the predominant presence of vehicles.

However, what I would like to see is the instigation of 20mph zones from the four main approaches to the village possibly with gateways, although this would involve more signage and road markings.

In addition to this, where there are already shared spaces, alluded to above, perhaps special surface treatment would be advantageous.

What is also essential is that we all pay due regard to the number of unnecessary vehicle trips that we undertake and so alleviate the parking problems and reduce the traffic flows in and around the village centre.

from 'Rocklea', School Road.