Hydrotherapy pool plans at Peterborough GP Surgery pulled over rising costs
Plans that would have seen a hydrotherapy pool built at a city GP practice have been amended to omit the eagerly anticipated facility due to rising costs.
Work on the multi-million pound facility at the Thistlemoor Medical Centre in Millfield was rubber-stamped in 2024 when Peterborough City Council approved the plans.
In the original plans, the new look, three-storey facility to be built at the Lincoln Road surgery was to offer both land-based and aquatic physiotherapy (hydrotherapy) services.
However, the revised plans – which are available to view on the council’s online planning portal – no longer include the long-awaited hydrotherapy pool.
The plans were seen as vital for those who have been calling for a new hydrotherapy pool to be built in Peterborough since 2022, when the city council announced the closure of St George’s community hydrotherapy pool.
The Peterborough Telegraph exclusively revealed the plans for the Thistlemoor facility in 2022.
Plans were submitted shortly afterwards – but the initial proposals had to be scrapped and redrawn, so the facility could include a larger pool.
In 2024, Dr Neil Modha, who was behind the plans, said there would be ‘spades in the ground’ that summer, after the proposals were approved by planners.
However, while the facility will still be built, there will be no hydrotherapy pool included.
Speaking about Thistelmoor’s decision to remove hydrotherapy from the plans, Karen Oldale, St George’s Friends and Service Users’ Lead, said it was a “terrible blow and incredibly disappointing.”
“When the closure of St George’s was announced, this planned facility was offered as a replacement,” she said, adding: “We even helped with the design.”
GP and managing partner at Thistlemoor Medical Centre, Dr Neil Modha, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) that the decision to remove the hydrotherapy pool from the plans was made, reluctantly, due to rising costs:
“Building costs have gone up on the overall project [and] energy prices have gone up as well, which has made it harder to make it viable,” he said.
“Our aim was always to keep the cost as low as possible for people using the service, but, unfortunately, with all of those costs going up, it was looking just more and more unviable.”
“The build costs over the time have gone up about 20 per cent – the Iran war has put steel up by about 20 per cent – so we’ve had to look and rationalise.”
Dr Modha explained that the sheer complexity of building a hydrotherapy was also a factor:
“Hydrotherapy was the most complex bit of the development because you’ve got to dig down into the ground, you’ve got to excavate a lot more, you’ve got to have drainage that works for it [and] doesn’t cause any problems.”
“All of that was just complex, and unfortunately added lots to the costs.”
While Dr Modha acknowledged the absence of a hydrotherapy as a blow, he was keen to highlight how the remaining plans for the revamped surgery will still deliver a host of other benefits to local patients and service users:
“We’ve now got an NHS contract for providing dental services… so we’re going to increase the dental provision,” he said.
“We’ve [also] been talking to opticians – talking to some of the national chains – about coming in, not just to sell glasses, but to provide services like pressure monitoring, eye screening, and things like that.”
“I am sure the revised plans still include much-needed facilities,” Karen Oldale acknowledged. “However, St George former users – who include some of the most unwell and disabled people in our city – have been very poorly served.”
Ms Oldale and Dr Modha both agreed that they now have high hopes for the building of a new hydrotherapy pool in Werrington. The initiative – which would see The Barn on Hodgson Avenue redeveloped to accommodate a hydrotherapy and rehabilitation facility – was approved by the city council earlier this year.
“I sincerely hope Peterborough City Council’s more recent approval for the sale of land in Werrington for the development of a hydrotherapy pool, very soon comes to fruition,” Ms Oldale said.
“I’m hoping Peterborough will still have that hydrotherapy facility,” Dr Modha agreed. “Hopefully, in Werrington, there will be a solution for hydrotherapy going forwards.