‘Escalating land prices driven by nearby housing developments’ made building a new surgery unfeasible

Congresbury’s GP surgery, which has been temporarily closed since 2022(Image: Google Maps)

A village’s GP surgery could soon be permanently closed.

Congresbury’s GP surgery has been closed on a temporary basis since 2022. Now Mendip Vale Medical Group is proposing to make that closure permanent.

North Somerset Council health scrutiny committee was told the building was too small, had inadequate facilities, and that running such a small surgery caused staffing issues. Addressing the committee on March 12, the medical group’s associate divisional director Lois Reed said: “The site now requires significant investment to return it to clinical use.”

It would cost an estimated £300k which the group said was not available. A report said that plans had been drawn up to build a new surgery, but that “escalating land prices driven by nearby housing developments” meant that most sites were not feasible.

Patients have been seen by the surgeries in Yatton and Langford while Congresbury’s surgery has been temporarily closed, and it is now planned to make this situation permanent. The medical group is now looking at transferring the GP surgery building to a local group for a use such as a community hub.

Debbie Freeman, of the NHS integrated care board covering the area, said: “Not all rural villages have a GP practice. Congresbury is one of the ones that have been fortunate in the past.”

Committee chair Helen Thornton (Weston-super-Mare Uphill, Labour) said: “I think there’s a recognition that its not fit for purpose […] but obviously its a shame there’s not the funding for a new surgery.”

Wendy Griggs (Yatton, Liberal Democrat) added: “I totally support the closure. It’s far too small, it’s far too constrained to put any sort of doctor’s surgery in there with all the facilities you need.” But she warned that there was a lack of public transport for people to reach the surgery, and that people who called by phone often did not get the help with econsult which they were meant to.

Dr Joanna King of Mendip Vale Medical Group said that staff should be trained to help people with consult and that the surgery would offer transport to anyone who needed it if they needed to be seen for an urgent issue. But she said it was a challenge for many people in the large rural area covered by the medical group to get around relying on public transport, warning it was “a form of deprivation.”

A formal decision on whether the GP surgery can close will be made by the Bristol, North Somerset, and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board.