Derbyshire medical practice plans significant expansion - to cope with a potential huge housing estate

The Arthur Medical Centre in Main Street, Horsley Woodhouse, between Belper and Heanor, has applied for a major expansion involving six new consultation rooms.

Plans filed by the medical centre to Amber Valley Borough Council detail: “A new building development of up to 1,500 homes has been proposed for land north of Denby.

“This development would lie within the current practice boundary. However, this plan has not yet been fully approved/adopted by Amber Valley Borough Council.

“In anticipation of this building development, the practice has extended the car park previously. The proposal for extensions and clinical waste store to the existing practice building to increase our clinical capacity, to reflect increasing demand.”

The 1,500-home plan for homes, known locally as Cinderhill and host to the infamous Denby acid tar pits, does not currently exist.

In March, Harworth and Pegasus Group submitted plans for 300 homes and 74 acres of warehouses on the Denby site, excluding any development or remediation of the tar pits.

These 300-home plans have not yet been decided.

It was a marked reduction from previous plans in 2019 for 1,200 homes and 12 acres of warehouse and employment space.

Prior to that was a much larger plan for 3,000 homes and a new A38 junction were also scrapped.

The medical centre details that it is responsible for 9,150 patients, including all the residents at three care homes.

Its planned extension would include a two-storey extra addition and a single-story block and “vastly increase the capacity of the general public that the medical centre can accommodate”, with six new consultation rooms.

The practice has “politely requested” that the application be approved within the next eight weeks because it has a “very small window to hit the expectations of the NHS”.

It says: “Any delays past eight weeks ultimately will lead to funding being lost from the NHS and potential improvements to local services lost (using public S106 monies from developers).

“This funding will not be made available again. We have to make a start on the site in January 2024.”