Page 37 Agenda Item 5c 8 week date Application No. Date of meeting Report No. 12/03/2010 20090979 17/03/2010 Land rear of The Theatre Guild, Vale Road, Northfleet Erection of part two storey, part single storey building to provide a primary care centre and pharmacy (Stage 3) with associated car parking and landscaping. GP Group Recommendation: To be set out in a supplementary report 1. Site Description The application site comprises an area of land extending to approximately 0.5 hectares (1.1. acres) of land and is located at the rear of and to the west of the Gravesend District Theatre Guild building at the junction of Vale Road with Thames Way and extends beyond the site of the existing temporary doctors surgery. It comprises a small part of the land comprising the Northfleet Urban County Park, which extends to some 25 acres in total. Following a planning permission granted in May last year a temporary building for a primary medical care centre as a walk-in surgery together with a tarmaced car park for 12 cars (on 0.1 hectares) was built immediately adjacent to the Theatre Guild building and this became operational in mid September and is known as The White Horse Surgery. That particular site was previously partly used as an overflow parking area (a hoggin surface, with some pot holes and ponding) and partly as a very small part of the larger Northfleet Urban Country Park. There was also a small brick storage building with a pitched felted roof on the site and which was formerly changing rooms for playing fields at the rear of Springhead Road. The building was subsequently used by the Gravesend and District Theatre Guild as a scenery store. This was demolished when the temporary surgery was built. A further plot of land extending to 0.269 hectares (0.66 acres) immediately between the current application site and the temporary facility site was the subject of an approval for a permanent replacement medical care centre in November 2009. That site comprised a small part of the urban country park and a part of it was used for green composting/open storage by Gravesham Services. There is a public footpath (NU21) shown on the definitive map that runs behind and on the south side of the Theatre Guild building running parallel with the building and alongside Thames Way and the Fastrack bus lane in the grass verge, but not within the application site. There is a kissing gate entrance from the public footpath in Page 38 Thames Way into the Theatre Guild site. This runs as a rough path, but signposted as a footpath (permissive) along the edge of the car park and joins with another informal path that was created within the country park. There is also a pedestrian entrance into the car park of the temporary surgery. Vehicular access to the site is from the existing entrance from Vale Road that serves the parking area for the Theatre Guild building. The access is gated. A play group also operates from the Theatre Guild building (Little Angels Day Nursery). The Theatre Guild occupies a single storey brick building with a corrugated metal roof and which has a small flat roofed extension on the south side and there is a triple garage building used for storage just to the west. Both these buildings adjoin but are not within the application site. The car park to serve the Theatre Guild building is roughly tarmaced but is not marked out. The access into the site is separated from the car parking area by a low post and rail fence. There is no lighting to the car park. As well as being used for parking by users of the Theatre Guild and the day nursery the car parking area is also used by the public visiting the Northfleet urban country park. There is no separate footpath through the site into the country park although there is a footpath that goes into the park from Vale Road next to the gated vehicular access from Vale Road. The buildings and car park are enclosed by weld mesh fencing along the Vale Road frontage and new weld mesh fencing has been erected around the site of the temporary surgery. 2. Planning History The Urban Country Park site The land to the rear of the Theatre Guild building, originally part of a former chalk pit, was part of a much larger area of land either side of what is now Thames Way used partly for recreation purposes but was also used for waste disposal in the early 1950’s and as a public amenity tip in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Tipping ceased as a domestic refuse tip in 1973 but the land continued to be used as a Civic Amenities Tip until 1989. In 1992 gas venting trenches were installed on the edge of the former chalk pit along the Vale Road frontage and in the south west corner. The ordnance survey plans show that the land immediately to the west of the Theatre Guild building and garage was used as allotment gardens. The current access to the site and to the Theatre Guild building was originally created in 1957 as an access to the refuse tip. The brick storage building was originally granted permission in March 1974 (reference TH/3/73/467) as sports changing facilities along with planning permission for use of land as sports pitches on 20 acres of land including land at the rear of Brookvale Depot and Northfleet cemetery. This followed an earlier permission in 1970 for use of part of the tip site (18.9 acres) for recreation purposes. In 1984 planning permission was granted for the construction of Thames Way as part of the South Thames-side Development Route, Stage 5, now classified the A2260. The site was partially restored in 1985 for use as a public open space. The REPORT NO PAGE 2 Page 39 restoration programme resulted in the creation of a graded slope and levelling of a plateau and some planting. Planning permission was granted in 1996 (reference GR/94/0656) for the use of the filled in chalk pit for an urban country park. This was on an area of 25 acres. It involved planting, creation of features and provision of footpaths. Longer term proposals for kiosk/toilets have not been provided. Theatre Guild and Day Nursery The Theatre Guild building dates from 1957 (reference TH/3/57/85). It was originally built, at the same time as the garage building, as a Cold War civil defence building. In 1978 planning permission was granted for an extension for a kitchen, when it was being used as the Northfleet senior citizens day centre. In 1990 planning permission was granted for the use of the main hall building for storage rehearsals and performances by the Gravesend and District Theatre Guild with the garage building to be used for storage purposes. The garage building is now used for storage by the Theatre Guild but it was leased out by the Council for storage to local charities. Planning permission was granted in 1991 to operate a day nursery from the main building. Planning permission was granted in 1998 for a storage shed attached to the rear of the main Theatre Guild building. The Primary Care Centre An application was submitted in March this year (GR/2009/0215) for temporary planning permission for a period of five years for the erection of a pair of adjoining portable buildings for use as a primary care centre (doctors’ surgery). The floor area of the units in total was 381m 2. The combined unit would measure 25m long by 15.6m wide constructed of plastic coated steel sheets (coloured green) and with a flat roof 3.3m high. The units would provide seven consulting rooms and two treatment rooms. The units were to be located on the northern half of the site with parking on the southern half. The units/parking had been switched around since the application was first submitted due to the presence of a public sewer. Twelve car parking spaces were shown within the site and an enclosed bin storage area. It was stated that an overflow parking area will be within the shared parking area on the north side of the Theatre Guild building. The temporary facility was shown to be located to the west of the Theatre Guild building and garage building but would involve the demolition of the brick storage building. It was intended to be the first phase of an Equitable Access to Primary Medical Care Facility (EAPMC) to serve the population of Northfleet. The EAPMC programme arose out of the NHS Review (October 2007) carried out by Lord Darzi. The contract to provide this facility was won by Fleet Healthcare and the buildings were to be REPORT NO PAGE 3 Page 40 developed by GP Group (General Practice Investment Corporation Ltd) on their behalf. It was proposed that permanent accommodation for the EAPMC service would be provided in an extended Health Campus to the west of the temporary facility which it is also proposed could potentially accommodate the relocation of existing substandard local surgeries and a number of Complementary Healthcare Service Providers. The new facility was proposed to be named “The White Horse Surgery and Walk-in Centre.” The application was accompanied by a geo-environmental desk study and contamination risk assessment. A pre-report Members’ site inspection (Members and officers plus the applicants) took place on Saturday 9 May 2009. The application was subsequently considered by the Regulatory Board on 27 May 2009.