FOLLOWING the Bude Community Network Panel meeting on January 8, local resident Lucille Opie has called for a new medical centre in the town.

Ms Opie, along with a whole host of county, town and parish councillors and members of the public, listened to and then asked questions to the urgent and emergency care executive lead for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, Karen Kay, and the head of locality support for the NHS Kernow Clinical Commissioning Group, Paula Bland, who gave an update on Shaping our Future’s latest plans.

The subjects of hospitals, urgent care centres and minor injury units in the county have been in the news recently as reports of minor injury units closing in North Cornwall, including the one at Stratton, havebeen denied by Cornwall Council leader Adam Paynter and NHS Kernow’s chief officer, Jackie Pendleton.

Ms Opie is adamant that the town needs a new medical centre.

She said: “We desperately need a new medical centre as the first point of call is a GP. Stratton is so inadequate, they have 12,500 patients but there’s no car park.

“My main concern is that Bude is an inadequate medical centre. The population will rise steadily in the next five to ten years by at least a thousand and we need something bigger. We definitely need a new building to cater for the area. We cover all the way from Clovelly right down to Poundstock and that’s a large area of villages.

“We can’t have this new [Shaping our Future] project until we have a new medical centre. It’s the most important thing.”