Disappointment as local centre on 2,500-home Great Wilsey Park estate, in Haverhill, misses out on health facility

A health facility will not be included in the first of two community centres to be built on the 2,500-home Great Wilsey Park – and the completion of a convenience store will also be delayed.

The updates for the scheme in north east Haverhill were provided at Monday’s meeting of the Haverhill Town Council planning committee.

Councillors discussed a reserved matters planning application (the more precise details for the scheme) submitted to West Suffolk Council by HJ Pelley Settlement Trust for what will be the first of two proposed community spaces.

The space would comprise a café, office, retail and nursery space with associated internal roads, car and cycle parking, mobility hub, landscaping, play space, public open space and servicing,

Michael Chapman, from the trust, said the retail unit was not included as part of this planning application but would follow at a later date.

He said: “We are in the process of communications with a potential supplier for that at the moment but nothing has been agreed so far.”

Cllr John Burns asked if the developer had a potential provider for the nursery, to which Mr Chapman said talks had been held but nothing agreed yet.

Asked if there was a timescale for the community centre to be completed, Mr Chapman said not enough houses had been sold and occupied to make the retail space appeal to any takers.

He said: “We are keen to get it built asap. There is a critical mass required to make sure that this works.

“We will have an interim strategy in terms of management to fulfil that short term gap when there isn’t a critical mass on site to make it work and then we will be looking to develop it and running it at a different level, obviously, once the site is sold.

“To support these sort of things we need a critical mass. We are not there yet and the development is not operating as quickly as we thought it would.”

Mr Chapman went on to say how the trust was ‘disappointed’ not to get a health facility on site, as was originally hoped.

Space was allocated in the community centre for a health facility, but in October the NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board (ICB) confirmed it would not be requesting the transfer of any land on which to build such facilities.

“We were pushing for that as much as we could,” said Mr Chapman, “but it’s out of our control in terms of what they require.

“I think, for this sort of development and within that kind of hub, a health use would have been amazing.”

Cllr Pat Hanlon, chair of the committee, said: “We were all very disappointed the health authority did that because we really need a GP surgery, another GP surgery, because the town is expanding enormously. There’s 2,500 (homes) as you know, going into your area so it’s a well-needed thing.”

Should the reserved matters be approved, the timeline was, said Mr Chapman, to have the community centre completed within two years.

The committee voted to take a neutral stance on the application.