Concerns on health impact of housing
A civic trust has unearthed correspondence it believes supports claims that health workers are growing increasingly concerned about the number of major housing developments being approved in Kinross-shire.
Emails seen by the PA show two GPs warned a medical director last year that plans to create 41 new retirement homes on the site of the former Windlestrae Hotel in Kinross would require staff at Loch Leven Health Centre to take on “lots of extra work”.
The exchange prompted a primary care manager to ask planning officials presiding over a separate bid to build 67 private dwellings at Pitdownies Farm in Milnathort to request £50,000 from the developer to provide “additional clinical accommodation” at the centre.
Kinross-shire Civic Trust (KCT) obtained the emails using Freedom of Information (FoI) laws and has since referred to some of their content in its response to Springfield Properties’ appeal against PKC’s decision to refuse the latter scheme.
One email shows a local GP replied when asked if Loch Leven Health Centre could “seamlessly absorb” an extra 100 patients from the retirement home scheme: “I’d like an example of any practice in the country that can ‘seamlessly absorb’ 100 patients in current conditions.
“Are they retirement flats? If so, lots of extra work if our previous experiences are anything to go by.”
A second GP later agreed during exchanges their colleague had put their shared concerns in “a succinct way”.
Perth and Kinross Health and Social Care Partnership (PKHSCP) associate medical director Dr Hamish Dougall then replied the next day: “Given my guess is the planners are unlikely to decline an application on the basis of what you are saying, is there anything that the planners could require of the developers that would assist the practices in meeting the increased demand with respect to capital project adaptations to your building?”
After a few more exchanges Jim Devine, the partnership’s primary care manager, then told PKC: “One of the issues which has come back from the practices in Kinross is … whether or not the applicants would consider paying for additional building works that would … arise from the need to provide additional clinical accommodation within [Loch Leven Health Centre].
“Is [there] potential to consider a contribution to any building costs which may be necessary from PKC given the circumstances?
“There are no funds within the NHS Tayside Capital Plan [nor] staff support to effect any building works. A contribution … of around £50,000 would be helpful.”
PKC later ruled in a report of handling: “Neither NHS Tayside or the HSCP provided detailed feedback at the time of the [Pitdownies] site being allocated [for development].
“As such, whilst there may be an impact on the local health infrastructure … the opportunity to seek developer contribution towards healthcare infrastructure provision for the extent of the development ... has been missed and it would not be reasonable to now seek this retrospectively.”
KCT has now told the Scottish Government, which is considering Springfield Properties’ appeal: “The [PKHSCP] consultation response for Pitdownies … indicates that the person responding was not aware of what would or would not be in the powers of PKC to grant in terms of mitigating the effect of yet more housing on the local health centre and its services.
“Perhaps if the … responder knew more about the planning system, the response would have been a clear objection to both this application and the Windlestrae application also referred to in the response.
“This and other emails obtained … indicate that the doctors at Loch Leven Health Centre are very concerned about the effects of the rapidly increasing population in Kinross-shire but unfortunately their views are not being effectively represented by the staff from the HSCP who have so far been responsible for communicating with planning officers.”
Reacting to that criticism PKHSCP chief officer Gordon Paterson remarked: “When we are asked to comment on planning applications we do so in respect of the services that we directly provide.
“We also feed in concerns from local GPs, as we work with them in support of the delivery of local primary care services.
“However GPs are independent contractors and can themselves be consultees to planning applications and make their own representations.
“We now have in place a more formal and structured approach to co-ordinating responses from the HSCP to PKC planning requests and we intend to benchmark with other areas to see if we can develop this further.”
Separately, the trust also criticised PKC for not publishing PKHSCP’s responses to planning applications and for not bringing up the emails relating to the retirement home scheme when councillors were asked to approve it back in January.
A spokesperson said: “For the [council’s] planning service to simply tell councillors … the response regarding the Windlestrae was that the NHS had ‘no objection’ is a distortion of the true position.”
A PKC spokesperson countered: “We consulted with NHS Tayside and PKHSCP through established arrangements and no objections were raised during the statutory 21 day period.
“Some informal comments were, however, received after the papers were published and so councillors were verbally updated at the meeting.”