A second Planning Application has been received for Balfe Street.  This one has proposed another medical facility.  The application is quite vague and while the previous application was deemed to be a benefit to the area, this one could be different.  I have requested that our Councillor Paul Convery investigate and this is what he as found thus far:

This appears to be changing the use of the 2nd floor only. I noticed that the original application received in April did not include the 2nd floor. The applicant is the same (Land and Equity) so I presume it is still for an NHS walk-in centre which will be operated by Netcare.

I have written now to both Land & Equity and to Netcare asking for a more comprehensive explanation of what they are doing. Taking both applications together it appears there will be medical services on the 2nd floor with some residential elsewhere and retail on the ground floor. It’s hard to tell, however. If this is still to be an NHS walk-in centre operated by Netcare UK, I doubt whether there will be anything that might worry neighbours.

It’s worth looking at http://www.netcare.co.uk/ which gives a good idea of the kind of operations they run – the NHS walk-in Centre is likely to be similar to one they run in Leeds City Centre.

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Update from Paul as of 26 Sept…

It now seems that Land & Equity is trying several different options to lease the site. They already have the permisison to use the 1st floor for medical purposes with an entrance on Balfe Street. However, it seems that Netcare has backed-out because of problems with extending some kind of licencing. The latest application would therefore give them the option of using the 2nd floor as medical too (but it is unclear why they want this unless there is another operator in the wings). There are 2 other applications in the works: (a) an A3 restaurant use on the ground and basement floors of the Caledonian Road frontage; and (b) use 10 and 12 Balfe Street as 2 houses (there is already an extant permission for the upper 2 floors of these houses to be used as residential).

This is slightly disappointing because I had thought the NHS walk-in centre would be a good addition to the area. I am not thrilled about the restaurant use however. Other options seem OK. Land & Equity are clearly punting all sorts of applications to see what they can get. I think this is a pretty irresponsible way to behave. More significantly, I now realise that our planners gave the permission for medical use without ataching a condition requiring it to be used as an NHS walk-in centre (this is what’s a "personal permission").

Paul