SPECULATIVE developers are determined to press for permission to build yet more houses in Thornbury.

A top concern locally is the inability of the already overstretched health services to cope even with the agreed numbers, let alone those which are being forced upon us.

Therefore at the beginning of May we three district councillors wrote to our MP Luke Hall asking him to convene a top level health meeting, as did his predecessor Steve Webb, to find a solution to the rapidly worsening situation.

It is now essential that concrete plans, with an agreed timetable, are put in place at once to expand the services offered at Thornbury Health Centre. Mere promises are no use whatsoever.

So far our letter to Luke Hall has not even been acknowledged.

The recent announcement of a possible new non-acute hospital in Thornbury is welcome but that will not help patients seeking normal health care and, alarmingly, the hospital plans may even mean that some services, such as the current outpatients department, will be lost.

How much longer must Thornbury and residents across this whole area wait, and what else must we do to achieve the health facilities which are so very badly needed?

Cllrs Clare Fardell, Shirley Holloway and Maggie Tyrrell representing Thornbury North and Thornbury South & Alveston