Wearing one of my other hats, I recently attended a meeting of the Bosmere Medical Practice Patient Participation Group (PPG). These occasional meetings have been scheduled over lunchtimes throughout the current pandemic given that the practice doctors and staff have no other time to spare. To be honest, they even struggle to make that time fit given their current workload. Staff morale is at an all time low, the government’s changing rules on vaccination groups and the erratic supplies of vaccine, often delivered at barely 48 hours notice, necessitates significant admin effort and appointment rescheduling. The practice is bending over backwards and working ridiculous hours to help the 20,000 patients on their list so you’d like to think that people would keep off their backs.
Sadly, the fact that a minority of vocal patients regularly bombard them with offensive and abusive phone calls isn’t helped by the fact that Havant Borough Council and Portsmouth Water keep them completely in the dark about their future. The Practice Manager reported to the PPG that staff can now see a new site road forming with heavy machinery working in the woodland to the north of the surgery. This work presumably relates to a previous planning application ‘for tree work’ which we reported last October as ‘the thin end of a wedge’.
Last December we wrote about the lack of public visibility of a masterplan for the site and if you’re not familiar with the location please take a few minutes to read it. Click this link and it will open in a separate browser tab.
The slideshow below contains four images. The first, from Google Earth, shows the site as it is today, with the Bosmere Medical Practice visible at the bottom of the frame in the centre. The second image is from the latest Portsmouth Water planning application which is in pre-planning and expected for consultation imminently. The third image shows the application for a new site entrance on Brockhampton Road for which detailed plans submitted in March 2021 show is designed to be usable by ‘large, four axle tipper trucks’.
The fourth image shows the allocation for housing on the rest of the site. While no plans have been published, the allocation itself suggests where site access might be, from West Street and Brockhampton Road.
The next two slides show the plans for the immediate surroundings of the Bosmere Medical Centre in Solent Road. The current aerial view shows the dedicated access road into the surgery and the pharmacy with staff parking to the right of the buildings and patient parking in front. Those who know the surgery will know that the short cul de sac to the left is often also jammed with waiting cars at peak surgery hours. Surgery hours are dictated by the NHS contract and thus coincide with peak morning and afternoon Solent Road traffic.
The second image above shows the outline plan proposed by Portsmouth Water at the Development Consultation Forum which we reported on in October 2019.
The third image summarises the planning application which will shortly be logged for consultation. It appears that Portsmouth Water and their architect have completely ignored the deputations made to the Development Consultation Forum by concerned residents of Manor Court and by HCS on behalf of the Bosmere Medical Practice. When the application is available for consultation, we will be notifying our members and will be working with the practice to notify the 20,000 patients on their list, the majority of whom will be Havant residents and council tax payers.
Watch out for a further post when the new application is published.
#rethinkhavant
Havant Civic Society 