The new “Nelson Local Care Centre” will be located on the existing Nelson Hospital site on Kingston Road in Wimbledon Chase.  The existing hospital car park will be re-developed to provide supported housing. The current plans for the hospital site can be seen here, and comments should be emailed to [email protected]. The idea behind Local Care Centres is to provide “well integrated, welcoming, and navigable facilities appropriate for the efficient delivery of modern healthcare” by providing a range of services on one site. The Nelson Local Care Centre will include two GP practices, pharmacy and  an Older People’s Assessment and Rehabilitation Service.

You can see the Council’s ‘planning brief’ for the site (ie how they thought the site should be developed) on their website.

At the recent public consultation meeting, residents expressed concerns about parking, traffic and road access (and Merton Park’s Residents Association councillors have previously criticised the proposals on these grounds). Shas Sheehan, the Lib Dem candidate for Wimbledon at the last General Election, asked whether any dentistry would be provided at the new centre (not at present). Merton Hall Road resident Anthony Fairclough asked whether it was predicted that the new centre would increase existing traffic and tailbacks on Kingston Road heading East, given the problems already (no, because it is felt that limited parking at the site will reduce the number of people coming by car).

Next steps? The current plan for a planning application to be submitted in November, to be approved by February 2012. There are definitely still some difficult issues to iron out.