GAZETTE & HERALD: Plans to move the new Hathaway Surgery complex from the Allington site to the Middlefield playing fields have been rejected by partners at the surgery.

The surgery wants to move from its current outdated premises in New Road to a state-of-the-art surgery with an attached dentist, pharmacy and primary health care team on the Allington site in Chippenham in summer 2005.

The site for the surgery was earmarked on the former Allington School, where a housing development is planned.

But landowners Wiltshire County Council recently proposed a rethink of the site and wanted the surgery on the next-door Middlefield School playing fields instead.

Middlefield is a special needs school and its future is due for review, regardless of the fate of the new surgery.

At first partners at Hathaway were happy to make the move, thinking it would simply involve shifting the premises from one side of the access road to the other.

However closer inspection of the plans revealed the proposed Middlefield site would mean patients had to drive through the new housing estate.

Hathaway manager Andy Briggs said: "Moving to the Middlefield site would have disadvantages. Residential areas tend to have road bumps and traffic calming which might not be good for people coming to the surgery who have conditions like arthritis.

"Also, it would mean a large number of car movements on the estate with people coming to and from the surgery every day, so it would be better to have the surgery at the entrance to the estate. There was no advantage to us to move."

Representatives from Hathaway discussed the issues with county council officers on Tuesday and it was agreed to keep the surgery on the Allington site.

A spokesman from the county council said the move to the Middlefield site was mooted as a way of raising capital, as the surgery site on Allington could have been sold to build extra housing, which could then have been used to build a new Middlefield Centre.