EARLY ONE MORNING.........................
Liberal Democrat Councillor for Stansted North on Uttlesford District Council and former Leader of the Liberal Democrat Group Learn more
by Alan Dean on 14 June, 2012
Stansted’s proposed new health centre is being redesigned. Just two weeks after Pelham Structures’ planning application in Lower Street was turned down, Pelham’s Bill Bampton came to Stansted last night to announce that his company is designing a new building in a more traditional style that will rise to only three storeys with attics.
Whilst it is too soon to celebrate, it was pleasing to note that Mr Bampton has decided against appealing the refusal of the 5-storey building and wants to continue to work with the local community to find a solution more in keeping with the Lower Street venue. That is a good sign.
3 Comments
Will be interesting to see the new design. Will it have the supermarket we do not need ,and the flats?. Will it be just as big and bulky , even if not five storeys? He says three with attics. That’s four storeys. Shame it wasn’t him that had the Bellways site really.
All of the time, effort and expense could have been spared and we could have our health center up and running by now if the people involved had got together and suggested a re-design in the first place.
A shop is useful in Lower Street and could even take some of the pressure away from Cambridge Road and be far more accessible to residents living in that area not to mention commuters returning home on the trains.
Flats can be useful for younger proffessional people and if people want to live in affordable flats rather than houses then it is their choice and who are we to deny anyone’s choice.
Flats can be built in sympathetic designs, the flats on Silver Street are a lot more tidy than the odd buildings, huts, waste land and shacks they replaced.
We need this health center in the village so my feelings are lets get on with it.
Healthcare in Stansted and the surrounding area is at the point of collapse and after so many years of haggling and debate now is the time to get something done about it.
It is beyond me that people can make such a big issue over a shop and flats being incorporated into a building which could house a much needed facility causing further delays and expense. Time and again I have suggested meetings with the developers in order to try to find some common ground on which an acceptable compromise can be reached so that the much needed health centre goes ahead but to no heed and now after months (years) of wrangles and expense we are here again.
No one will ever please everyone, which is a fact, but while we are listening, or not as the case may be, to these arguments people are suffering from the lack of simple care which could so easily of been provided so long ago if people had been a little more realistic and a little less damning.
I am surprised that the PCT and indeed the Stansted practise has not been forthcoming with their intentions or their requirements but never the less we need this to go ahead and not try to put any new plans under so much scrutiny that the whole thing gets shelved yet once again.