GP surgery to get £400k from developers to build extension

A GP surgery in West Yorkshire will receive £400,000 of developer cash to expand its premises.

The Grange Park Surgery, in Burley-in-Wharfedale, asked the local council for funding to build an extension to help meet demand.

Its patient population is currently 6,900 – compared with 4,500 when it first opened in 1984 – and the development of over 750 homes in the area will further increase patient numbers.

Bradford Council agreed to allocate £400,000 from the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) to ‘help the surgery meet the increased demand from new developments’ in the area.

GP partner Dr Caroline Rayment said the process ‘has not been easy’ and it took almost four years for the money to be granted. She thanked local councillors and patients for their support during the process.

She said: ‘This means we will be able to commence increasing the size of the surgery to cope with existing and new demand which is great news.

‘This process has not been easy and has taken almost four years since we heard that the Sun Lane development was going to go ahead.

‘We have also had great support from you, our patients; the parish council, our PPG and the community leaders lunch group – thank you for not giving up on us.’

The first phase of CIL payments have been received so the funding will now be formally allocated with a draft funding agreement prepared with the surgery and their lenders, the council said.

A Bradford Council spokesperson said: ‘We are pleased to be able to reinvest some of our CIL funding into the community to support the practice with this extension and help them meet the increased demand.

‘It’s taken a lot of work to get to this point and we’re bringing this paper ahead of our annual CIL paper later in the year so the surgery can access the funding as quickly as possible and deliver the expansion.’

The Government has recently begun implementation of a new levy which could help ensure developers pay a fairer share towards local infrastructure like GP practices.

The levy aims to give councils more power over rates and how the money is spent, as well to prevent developers negotiating down the amount they contribute.

In 2018 Pulse revealed that a number of local authorities were failing to give GP surgeries a share of the infrastructure funding they received from housing developers.

And in 2020 a report by think tank Reform found that the NHS was missing out on millions of pounds from property developers.

According to a survey by the RCGP, four in 10 (40%) GP practice staff describe their premises as ‘unfit for purpose’.

And primary care minister Neil O’Brien told the Conservative Conference last year that the lack of focus on new GP provision when new housing is built is ‘mad’.