View report page

27
Vista Drive
Health Centre
The site for the Vista Drive Health Centre has been reserved for
some 20 years, although the land is not yet in the possession of the
Council and is not likely to be until the route of the new M. 11 is decided.
It had been intended to include this project in the next 3-year programme
for the construction to commence in 1972/3, but at the present
time this preliminary work is being postponed. The 3 general practitioners
who had previously expressed their wish to participate have now withdrawn,
and in any case the site is now unlikely to be acquired. There is
a possibility that this item will be deleted from the programme altogether.
Ilford Central
Redevelopment
Area
It is intended to provide a Health Centre within the redevelopment
area and a site has been provisionally allocated south of the High Road
in the present Oakfield Road area.
Meetings have been held with the Local Executive Council and there
has been sufficient response from the general practitioners whose present
premises will be affected by the redevelopment to make this a viable
proposition.
Certain dental practitioners likewise affected have also expressed
an interest. Although it will be at least five years before the building
is required, or the site available, close contact will be maintained with
all concerned. Should the project be completed, the Local Authority
Child Health sessions will be transferred from a church hall in this area,
and other Local Authority services would be provided.
Financing
finance will continue to remain uncertain tor many years because of
the economy "freeze and squeeze".
New procedures for presenting schemes to the Department of Health
and Social Security will enable planning to progress in a more certain
way. A certain amount of inspired guesswork will still be required to
place any project in the correct year of the Council's capital programme.
Financial stringency might delay the project envisaged.
The construction of Health Centres in the future depends on the
attitude of general practitioners wanting to practise from such premises.
It is likely that as the Health Centres programme gets under way, more
and more general practitioners would like to practise from Health Centres.
In any event it appears to be an impossibility for very many years
to provide premises for all who are in favour of Health Centres, although