No clinic on Town Hall car park

Plans for a mobile health clinic to be located on the car park at the rear of the Town Hall have been thrown out by Rochdale Council.

Councillors on the Rochdale Township planning sub-committee voted unanimously to reject the plans to protect the Town Hall, which is a grade I listed building.

Committee chairman Peter Clegg said: "This development would be detrimental to the setting and character of the Town Hall."

The developers, Care UK, will now search for another site for the clinic after the bid to site it at the Town Hall for a temporary 18 month period fell through. The clinic would offer surgery, urology and gynaecology services to around 80,000 patients. Sites have already been ruled out at Rochdale football club car park, Dunelm Mill car park, Hunters Lane and Smith Street.

Dorothy Greaves of the Rochdale Civic society attended the meeting and opposed the plan. She said: "This is a conservation area and the Town Hall surpasses even the glories of the House of Commons. These roving units that will be here today and gone tomorrow and it will give the Town Hall a Queen Anne front and a Mary Anne back! Is this what we mean by pride of place in our town?"

Councillors at the meeting went against the thoughts of the council's planning officers who recommended that the plan be given the go-ahead because the benefits to the community would outweigh the temporary damage done to the Town Hall and surrounding conservation area.

Councillor James Gartside said that although the council would be reimbursed for loss of revenue from the 30 car parking spaces that would be taken up, the development would detract from the beauty of the Town Hall and he feared that the development would be there longer than the proposed 18 months.

Councillor Zulf Ali said: "What about the Whitehall Street drop-in centre? That was supposed to be temporary, we could end up with the same situation here.

"The Town Hall should be preserved for visitors to the town. This development would have a negative impact upon the town itself. There are other sites and I would recommend that the developer takes a closer look into them."