A NEW medical centre, community hub and supported living facilities are set to be built in Whitchurch.

Shropshire Council, Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and The Wrekin Housing Trust plan to regenerate and redevelop the Pauls Moss site into a hub of housing, healthcare and community activity.

Councillor Steve Charmley, Shropshire Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for corporate and commercial services, said:

“This exciting and innovative project is brilliant news for Whitchurch and Whitchurch residents. It provides an opportunity to link the medical centre and housing with a community hub space that will enable local partners to provide a wide range of activities and services to local residents and patients.

“The need for a new medical centre in Whitchurch is well known, and this project will make sure that this need is met, and that Whitchurch has modern, accessible, and fit for purpose facilities that will help deliver the best services for patients, but also attract a high-quality workforce to the town.”

Shropshire Council formally agreed to support the scheme at cabinet and full council meetings last week.

Work is expected to take around three years and be completed by 2022.

The project will be funded by Shropshire Council, The Wrekin Housing Trust, Homes England, NHS England, Shropshire CCG and the One Public Estate programme.

The Pauls Moss scheme will provide the Whitchurch area with modern primary health and care services, and bring together three existing GP practices into a single site, so that services can be developed which are fully integrated with specialist housing and other community services.

A Shropshire Council spokesman added that The Wrekin Housing Trust is proposing to build new specialist accommodation for people over 55 in the form of lifetime apartments and potentially a number of bungalows that all give lifestyle choices for the ageing population of Whitchurch and north Shropshire.

The Pauls Moss site is currently run down and has a mix of redundant buildings and some dated social housing units, the spokesman said.

Dr Julian Povey, chairman of Shropshire CCG, said: “This is a really exciting project that brings health and social care together to support patients and local people. It will become a real community asset by uniting local services on to a single, dedicated site with purpose-built facilities."

Wayne Gethings, managing director of The Wrekin Housing Trust, said:

“Together with Shropshire Council and Shropshire CCG, we’ve designed a forward-thinking solution that will provide attractive, modern facilities that will not only fulfil the needs of today, but also be there for future generations.

“Combining specialist retirement housing with health and social care facilities is a model that is already proving popular, and invaluable, elsewhere in the county, and we’re thrilled Shropshire Council is supporting this development in Whitchurch, which will enrich the town.”

Brian Reynolds, Programme Director – One Public Estate, Local Government Association, said:

“Shropshire’s One Public Estate Partnership have worked at pace to bring this project forward since receiving the OPE funding earlier in the year. We look forward to seeing this rural health project progress and support the people of Whitchurch.

The plans are subject to a planning application being submitted and approved.

As the scheme will go out to tender, Shropshire Council says that it cannot disclose the the cost of the scheme and how much it has invested.