A PROJECT to create a new health centre for the Berkeley Vale is still in the planning stages three years after the scheme was announced.

The proposed replacement for Berkeley Hospital is planned to be open in 2012, offering more medical services at a local level.

However Berkeley Vale residents and local leaders are questioning whether it will go ahead at all as the planning process appears to have ground to a halt.

Cllr Dennis Andrewartha, county councillor for Cam and Dursley, said: "I am worried about what is going on, everything has gone quiet since they announced the three potential sites.

"I’m also worried that if they don’t get on with it soon they will lose the funding. If we get a new government next year you don’t know what will happen."

Gloucestershire PCT was awarded £6.4 million from the Department of Health in December 2007, over a year after the initial consultations for a new health centre were discussed in July 2006.

In May this year Gloucestershire PCT’s director of strategy development and corporate services Hazel Braund announced the three potential sites for the health centre and said they hoped to submit a planning application in August or early September this year.

However the PCT is still deciding which of the three sites to go for. These sites are Norman Hill, in Dursley, the Littlecombe site, in Dursley, or Draycott Business Park, in Cam.

Members of the Berkeley Hospital League of Friends, who fought to try to stop the plans to replace their hospital, have continued to fundraise and repair the hospital as usual as some think the new building may not go ahead.

Eugene Camper, treasurer of the League of Friends, said: "We haven’t heard anything about the new hospital for a long time. If it goes on much longer I suspect they will lose the funding, particularly if there is an election next year.

"We still hold the stance that there is no need to get rid of Berkeley Hospital and we have continued to fundraise for the facility as usual."

A spokeswoman for Gloucestershire PCT said they were "still looking at several options" and declined to comment further.