By Linzi Watson

Last updated at 16:54, Friday, 05 March 2010

LONG delays over plans for a new health centre in Brampton have left one local councillor doubting if they will ever come to fruition.

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The promise of a new ‘health campus’ combining the town’s ageing Moot Lodge nursing home, cottage hospital and GP practice were first announced in 2007.

A Local Improvement Finance Trust company (LIFTCo) was appointed to finance the project last year but doctors and representatives from the Brampton Cottage hospital say they are yet to meet with them.

And a decision on the site of the new centre still remains undecided – despite an initial promise that there would be “bricks on the ground” in 2008.

The options have been narrowed down to Union Lane or Kingwater on the edge of town – owned by Cumbria County Council and Carlisle City Council respectively.

The future of Brampton Community Centre, run by Brampton Community Association from the site at Union Lane, is therefore uncertain.

County councillor for Brampton and Gilsland Lawrence Fisher said this week that he is becoming “dubious” about the reality of the promised facility.

He told The Cumberland News: “It has got to the stage that I am not sure it is going to happen. I am getting dubious.

“The whole thing is up in the air. I am beginning to think those involved just don’t want to come out and say they are not going ahead with the plans.”

He added: “Everyone wants to know what is happening, everyone is in limbo.

“The community centre is in limbo, the cottage hospital is on limbo and the Moot Lodge is in limbo. Nobody can do anything.”

Geoff Prest, vice-chairman of Brampton parish council and the treasurer of Brampton Cottage Hospital League of Friends, said that the LIFT company were yet to contact them and the doctors in the town.

He said: “Brampton parish council have written to the PCT to ask for some more information and the League of Friends secretary is also trying to arrange a meeting.

“As far as I am aware there has been no contact with the doctors or the hospital which is disappointing because they would be the partners in the project. The LIFT company were appointed in October. This is dragging its feet a bit. We would have hoped there would be bricks on the ground by now.”

Brampton is one of six towns across Cumbria promised a new all encompassing health centre. The NHS say the whole scheme will take more then a decade to complete.

An NHS Cumbria spokesman said that a decision on when the scheme will progress will be taken later this month.

He added: “In line with NHS Cumbria’s drive to provide more health services – and the decisions taken over them – closer to home, GPs and other health professionals in each of the county’s six localities will decide which schemes in their area should be built first under the new LIFT programme, based upon the clinical needs of the patients they see.”

First published at 14:15, Friday, 05 March 2010
Published by http://www.bramptonlocal.co.uk