MEDICAL services in Addingham will be brought into the 21st century and should be secured for many years to come after planners backed the scheme to build a new centre in the village.

Although the plan has two more hurdles to jump, supporters are confident that it will become a reality within the next 12 months.

The plan to build the state-of-the-art facility went before the Keighley Area Planning Panel last week and received unanimous backing.

Planning panel chairman Chris Greaves (Wharfedale - Con) praised Addingham Parish Council chairman Gordon Campbell who gave what he described as an 'excellent' presentation in support of the plan.

Coun Greaves said that although it was passed unanimously by the panel, the plan had a number of extra conditions attached to it by members.

The building will include a pharmacy at first but panel members attached a condition that if it closed down in the future it could not immediately be changed to an ordinary shop with no connection to the GP surgery. Coun Greaves said that if a change of use occurred which was ancillary to the medical centre such as a chiropodist, that would be acceptable, but not an ordinary shop.

"If they came along and said we want to change it into a butchers -

we would say no," said Coun

Greaves.

Staff at the medical centre will also be supplied with Metro travel cards to encourage them to use public transport to get to work and there will be electronic notice boards in the surgery telling people what time the next bus is due.

Planners also voted to introduce a scheme whereby medical centre users could use the Memorial Hall car park when there was space during the day and vice versa when the

medical centre was closed in the evening.

They also stated that the provision of a new scout hut should be made a matter of priority because the existing one will have to be demolished to make way for the medical centre.

Councillor Greaves said panel members were glad to see members of Addingham Parish Council and the health authorities working together on the project.

The plan, because it involves the use of green belt land, will have to be approved by Bradford's regulatory committee and survive scrutiny by the Department of the Environment before building work can start.

It will be financed by private capital through an Airedale Primary Care Trust (PCT) scheme and leased back by the doctor's surgery. A spokesman for the PCT said it could be operational by early 2007.

After the meeting, Councillor Campbell said that now planning permission had been granted in principle, the parish council could press ahead with trying to relocate the scouts.

The medical centre site is owned by the parish council and lies at the rear of the Memorial Hall on Main Street. Funds raised by the sale of the land will be used to help provide a new scout hut.

A site by the football pavilion has been discussed and Coun Campbell said he hoped that the scheme could press ahead as soon as possible.

He said he was delighted with the planning panel's decision which should secure medical service

provision in the village for the

future.